This document provides lessons on design patterns and principles learned over billions of years of evolution. It discusses how differentiation and relationship are key to information and design. Effective designs balance containment, interchange, and optimal relationships at multiple scales. Nature iterates designs through replication, variation, and selection processes. High-performing designs are those that manage goals and resources through cascades and stacking of multiple functions. Seeing opportunities in "waste" and flows can lead to more positive designs that knit space together. The document advocates cultivating reverence and wonder in design work to continually improve patterns and create a better world.

1. Metapatterns: Lessons
David Foley
Holland & Foley Architecture, LLC
232 Beech Hill Rd.
Northport, Maine 04849
http://www.hollandandfoley.com
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2. Thank You, Tyler! And Amelia!
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3. Green Design Not New
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4. Profligate Design Not New
Conceive the Image • Command the Resources
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5. Triumph
Dominance
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6. Harmony
Coexistence
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7. 4.5 Billion-Year Lesson
Development Without Growth
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8. Pattern • Converging Form
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9. Cells: Borders
Contain Or Die • Exchange Or Die
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10. Differentiation
No Difference • No Information
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11. Relationship
Orient, Exchange By Difference
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12. Differentiate
Indoors/Outdoors • Sleeping/Living
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13. Differentiate • Relate
“Trinary:” Figure • Ground • Relationship
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14. Mugs • Contain & Relate
Foot/Table • Handle/Hand • Rim/Lip
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15. Border • Relationship • Design
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16. Balance • Contain & Relate
Too Much Interchange
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17. Balance • Contain & Relate
Not Enough Interchange
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18. Balance • Contain & Relate
Optimal Relationships
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19. Pattern: Repeating Relationship
Converges On Solution
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20. Patterns • Many Scales
City/Country Fingers Pools & Streams Entry Transition
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21. Border • Relationship • Quality
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22. Improve “Trinary” • Improve Design
(Joachim Eble, Architect)
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23. Fractals Useful
Same Area •
Articulate
Increased
The Edge
Border
(Koch Diagram)
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24. Interchange • Fractal Border
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25. Design Separation & Interchange
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26. Design Separation & Interchange
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27. Fractals Iterate
Repeating Rules At Finer Scale
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28. We Iterate
Details Each
From Detail A
Wholes Whole
Instructions Feedback
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29. Evolution Iterates
Replication • Variation • Selection • Fitness Tests
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30. Design Iterates
Fitness Tests?
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31. Fitness Tests
Life-Cycle Finance Standards
Past Mistakes
Foresight
Core Values
Design Unfolds From Goals
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32. Goals • Metrics
Develop reference case
Develop low-energy case
Develop Brief Rank order strategies Pre-design
Initial strategy selection
Set performance goals
Low-Energy Case (all strategies) 38.0
35.1
9 cost effective strategies
22.7 22.7
8.7
6.9
kBtu / ft²
From “Designing Low Energy 4.1 4.0
2.6
Buildings Using Energy-10”, Douglas 1.5
Balcomb et. al.
Heating Cooling Lights Other Total
ANNUAL ENERGY USE
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33. Court Feedback
Collaborate • Simulate • Verify
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34. Termite Mounds • Feedback
Embodied Process: Move Soil Toward Wind, Away From Heat
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35. Termites • Fungi • Symbiosis
Embodied Process: CO2 Helps Preferred Fungi
“A Superorganism’s Fuzzy Boundaries” • J. Scott Turner
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36. Process Matters
What It Is • IS How It’s Made
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37. Describing Vs. Generating
End Result
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12
B
T.O. LOFT T.O. LOFT
1x4 Superfascia
On 1x8 Fascia
C
C
D
5/4x6 Corner,
B
Frieze & Splash Bd.s A
12
6 Siding: Red Cedar
T.O. 2ND FLR Clapboards, 4" T.O. 2ND FLR
Note: Furr Down Porch Exposure; Pri me &
Ceiling 1'- 0" Below Backprime W/
Bottom Of Floor Oil/Alkyd Primer; Nail
Joists; Frame W/ 2x6 W/ Stainless Steel
KD @ 24" O.C. 5/4x4 Trim Siding Na ils
A @ Windows & A 1x4 Superrake
Doors (Typ.) On 1x8 Rake F
E G
Porch Deck: 5/4x6
Port Orford Cedar On
2x8 P T @ 16" O.C.
T.O. 1ST FLR T.O. 1ST FLR
T.O. DECK T.O. DECK
5/4x6 Splash Board W/ Alum. Drip Cap
Porch Posts: 4x4
PT Cased In 1-b y
Trim To 5"x5"
1. 2.
NORTH ELEVATION • SCALE: 1/4" = 1'-0" EAST ELEVATION • SCALE: 1/4" = 1'-0"
Roofing: Standing Seam Metal, e.g. "Galvalume" W/
Factory-Applied Finish, In stalled By Qualified
Professional; ALTERNATE: "Iko" Asphalt Roofing
Installed Per Mftr.'s Spec.'s; Verify Color W/ Owners
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12
NOTE: Adjust Lower Rafter Layout
So Meeting Point With Upper
12 Rafte rs Is At The Overhang
Distance Of The Upper Rafters On
12 The Opposi te Roof Face
B
T.O. LOFT T.O. LOFT
I J
C
E
H H 12
12 6
6
T.O. 2ND FLR T.O. 2ND FLR
MDO Panels
G E
E E E E
T.O. 1ST FLR T.O. 1ST FLR
T.O. DECK T.O. DECK
SOUTH ELEVATION • SCALE: 1/4" = 1'-0" WEST ELEVATION • SCALE: 1/4" = 1'-0"
3. 4.
Process
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38. Process • Performance
Sequence •
Relationships
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39. Managing Wholes
J. A. Foley et al., Science 309, 570 -574 (2005) Published by AAAS
Multiple Goals • Cascades • Stacking
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40. Rice Paddies
Just For Rice?
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41. The Power of Duck
(Takao Furuno)
Stacking Functions Cascade Of Benefits
Polyculture: Rice, Ducks, Fish, Fruit,Vegetables
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42. Problem Or Opportunity?
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43. Multiple Niches
Methane Reduced, Diversity Increased
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44. Cycles & Time
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45. Design • Throughput • Flow
“Waste Systems”
50%
Sources & Sinks
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46. Time-Lapse Movies
Envision Flows
See
Consequences
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47. Time-Lapse Movies
Wasteful + Harmful = Stupid
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48. Shearing Layers
D4D
How Buildings Learn • Design For Deconstruction
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49. Where’s the Wealth?
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50. What’s Wealth? • What’s Waste?
Sources & Sinks • Where Is “Away?”
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51. Possible? • Necessary?
Concentrating Solar • Zinc • CO2 • Hydrocarbons
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52. Channeling Pogo
“WE ARE
SURROUNDED BY
INSURMOUNTABLE
OPPORTUNITIES”
Scarcity Or
Sufficiency?
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53. Leftover Space?
Unmet Opportunity?
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54. Knitting Space Together
• Differentiate/Relate •
• Create/Repair •
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55. All Space Positive
Function &
Beauty?
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56. Seeing the Opportunities
Borders
Relationships
Flows
Feedback
Process
Cycles
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57. Doing the Work
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58. Cultivating Reverence
Science is not about control. It
is about cultivating a perpetual
condition of wonder in the face
of something that forever
grows one step richer and
subtler than our latest theory
about it. It is about reverence,
not mastery.
- Richard Powers
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59. Things Don’t Have To Be Like This
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60. Design A Better World
Thank You
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