Configuring patterns for systemic design - PUARL 2018 conference

Helene Finidori – PUARL 2018 - October 2018Helene Finidori – Puarl 2018 - October 2018
Configuring Patterns
& Pattern Languages
for Systemic Design
Helene Finidori
PUARL – Future of Pattern Languages
University of Oregon - Portland - October 2018
Final

Helene Finidori – PUARL 2018 - October 2018
Purplsoc 2017 questions
Societal questions at various scales, that affect peoples lives and activities

PUARL 2018 themes
Migrants and Refugees
• Causes
Poverty, climate change, Indigenous displacements, wars
• Issues & consequences
At home, escape journeys, trafficking, integration, urbanism,
homelessness
• Solutions?
Ø An intricacy of complex causes and effects involving wicked
problems that appear and produce effects at various levels and
scales, dramatically affecting people’s lives.

Pattern Languages for Systemic Design?
Causes & effects of
different nature,
entangled
Fragmented
knowledge & ways
of representing
Unpredictable
& changing
over time
Diff. ways of seing,
Interpreting, &
conflicting interests
No clear boundaries
around problems,
messy situations
Emergent effects at
multiple levels
Contexts &
understandings in
ongoing evolution
Pattern language forms and practice that can help tackle:
… and help transition from or transform current degenerative system behaviors into
more desirable [re]generative ones.
Problems can be
symptoms of other
problems
No “right” solution,
possible
contradictions
Wicked
Problems

The focus of my research
➢ Bridge pattern thinking/practice and systems thinking/practice; creating some
form of connections & interoperability among disciplines and domains.
➢ Take a systemic approach to pattern languages; focusing both on pattern
based observation/inquiry, and design.
➢ Develop pattern literacy and expand use of pattern languages to support
systems literacy and systemic design; embodied pattern knowledge.
Pattern
Literacy
Pattern
Instinct
Image: Adapted from Ray Ison - IFSR 2016
Pattern Literacy:
Enhancing humans’
innate competence for
for discovering,
recognizing,
associating, creating,
mobilizing patterns

Helene Finidori – ISSS 2018 - July 2018
Fourth Generation Pattern Languages
Introduced as a concept
at Purplsoc 2015.
Questions for moving
forward:
What would next
generation patterns and
pattern languages look
like?
What would be their form?
How could they be used?
… for a wholesome
approach both to patterns
and systems.
Finidori, H. , S. Borghini, and T. Henfrey. "Towards a Fourth Generation Pattern Language: Patterns as Epistemic Threads for
Systemic Orientation." In Purplsoc 2015 Proceedings, P. Baumgartner and Sickinger R. (Eds), 62-86. Berlin: epubli, 2015.
.

Patterns definition & relationship to systems ?
Here are some results of the Survey “Mapping the Landscape of Patterns across
Domains” undertaken mid 2018 by the Bertalanffy Center for the Study of
Systems Science Research Group: Systems Science and Pattern Literacy.
The survey targeted systems thinkers/scientists, designers, activists, consultants,
policy makers, and generated 140 responses.
Questions processed here:
➢ Words/concepts that come mind when thinking of patterns
➢ Description and/or definition of pattern in a couple of sentences
➢ Understanding of the role and/or potential of patterns in the context of
systems in a few sentences

An arrangement > at different scales, part/whole, more or less ordered, more or less generative
of elements > of different orders, more or less abstract, nested or not
repeated or repeatable in space/time > similarity or difference, stability or contingency
that is cognized or recognized > observable, anticipable, identifiable, recognizable, mobilizable
as manifestation of ‘reality’ or features of a system at work
that helps inquiry, meaning-making and design
and the crossing of boundaries of different kinds
key in the understanding and orientation of systems behavior and outcomes
Ø How does this fit pattern communities’ definition of a pattern?
Ø How do we use these attributes?
Synthesized pattern definition
From the BCSSS System Science and Pattern Literacy Research Group Survey:
Mapping the Landscape of Patterns across Domains

● If there is no pattern there is no system.
● Systems are, at one level, nothing more than patterns within a
context.
● Systems embody patterns, often recursive, nested, compound,
composable, decomposable, fractal, etc.
● Patterns define Systems, Systems define patterns.
● To me, in the language sense of Hofstadter, a system is a pattern.
● I tend to use these two terms interchangeably (not a fan of
defining system by function).
Patterns vs systems?
Verbatim from the Survey: Mapping the Landscape of Patterns across Domains
BCSSS System Science and Pattern Literacy Research Group - 2018

● The essence, sine qua non
● The critical stuff that underlies all systems knowledge.
● Pattern thinking is next generation systems thinking.
● The use of patterns in the implementation and practice of the work in the
meta-framework will be essential.
● Purpose & identifying patterns that link purpose to practice or actions are
foundational in the social sciences
● Pattern awareness will be core in meaning making, and understanding
systems and reality
● Much of cutting edge 21st century science will be about recognizing
patterns as opposed to recognizing objects: our political domain is the area
where pattern/systems thinking is most critically necessary and least
apparent.
Patterns: foundational to systems?

● Patterns enable to visualize systems of high complexity and thus
play an eminent role in knowledge transfer.
● Seeing patterns can help inform choices about transferring
evidence from one place to another by understanding the links
between units of activity
● The general language/tool that enables trans domain
communication and comparison. The clear discernment and
application of basic patterns enables transcendent design.
● Patterns are very important for meaning to be contextualized and
outline the diversity of observed reality.
Crossing boundaries with patterns

● Systems awareness
● See parts of complexity more clearly
● Make complex systemic relations explicit
● An identifiable pattern points to a system at work
● Everything recognizable is made of patterns
● Key to understanding the workings of systems
● Describe elements or characteristics of systems.
● Structuring messy situations; construction of sense
● Discerning the direction or nature or events
● Building blocks to define complex systems.
● Blueprint of a system
Helping make sense of, understand systems

● A function for both diagnosing and design
● Systemic aids for improved system evolution and optimization.
● Can help describe and understand systems and systems dynamics in
order to take more informed decision
● Can also enable people to improve systems, because they enable
analysis and understanding.
● Only by experiencing and trying to understand can we learn to compose
● An explicit methodology to capture the characteristics of overlap,
ambiguity and web-network interrelatedness within systems that can be
reused to generate designs
● Allow us to break out of binary thinking and applying ordered systems
approaches to solve complex problems; enables systems to become more
adaptive and agile in response to changing contexts.
Connecting understanding & design

Observe, study, analyze
Abstract & decompose
Provide context &
difference
Describe transformation
rules
Explain why phenomena
are how they are, or
predict how phenomena
will be
Describe interrelating
aspects of discrete things
See underlying, chaotic or
chaordic flows of material,
energy, or information.
Seed that builds complexity
Serve as scaffolding
Giving shape
Can be manipulated and
changed while retaining
their value
Design element that
promotes vitality and
wholesomeness
Reuse of design knowledge
Enhance stability of design
Prototypal design solution to
a recurring problem
Resolution of ‘forces’ in a
design problem
Describe how historical
and emergent energies
interact to create reality
Study transformative
emergent properties
Sense the world and
make meaning
Enhance senses
Arouse cognitive
perception
Widen circles of
perception
Guide through and
engage consciousness
Connecting inquiry, meaning-making & design

Patterns exist in the world, in our minds, as material forms.
Simultaneously!
Mehaffy: Partial symmetric relations and isomorphic correspondences between
the structures in the world, the structures of the brain, and the structure of
language or other formal representation systems that mirror them. Cities Alive - 2017
Kohls: The documented form of the pattern is the projection (expressed) of the
projection (in the mind) of the pattern in the world. In Doctoral Thesis - 2014
Alexander: Patterns in our minds are, more or less, mental images of the patterns
in the world: they are abstract representations of the very morphological rules
which define the patterns in the world. In the Timeless Way of Building. - 1979 (TWB)
Schuler: We see in patterns, and patterns help us see. In PUARL 2018 Presentation
The multifaceted nature of patterns

Five innate pre-linguistic core knowledges humans are born with:
● Forms (and their relations of length and angles)
● Quantity / numbers (and their arithmetic relations)
● Objects (and their motions)
● Agents (and their goal directed actions)
● Places (and their relations of distance and direction)
Assembled by our plastic minds to make sense of (input) and create (output)
increasingly complex structures as we develop and learn
→ An innate language of patterns of systemic nature?
That helps us understand the world, describe it and design/construct it?
Chomsky’s “universal grammar”, at play at a pre-linguistic level?
Source: S. Carrey, E. Spelke – Cognitive Psychology Harvard
Discovering the world – Innate competences

● Pattern recognition is a basic function of the mind (Gee)
● Patterns are the material of the neural function (Bloom)
● Our neocortex contains pattern recognition circuitry (Kurtzweil)
● Each zone of the neocortex handles a specific type of patterns, in whole or
part (Hawkins)
● "All our conceptions are obtained by abstractions and combinations of
cognitions (patterns) first occurring in judgments of experience (inferences).
The thoughts that we can cognize present themselves as signs” (Peirce)
● As synapses are consolidated through repetition, we gain a clearer ‘sense’ of
what is perceived, forming patterns.
● Re-cognition is the repeated cognition of similarities and differences that help
us categorize, i.e. learn and retrieve, complex combinations.
Patterns at the junction of the world and the mind

Primary retentions: the salient signs that we notice,
and retain, consciously or not, from our experiencing
the world
Secondary retentions: the filters / funnel through
which primary retentions are selected, made of the
aggregate of past primary retentions (memory,
habits of mind)
Tertiary retentions: the tracks we leave in the
environment for others to process (cultural
artifacts).
Stiegler after Husserl
Patterns involved in how we “retain” what we perceive
Ø All can have the form of patterns

Patterns and the encoding & decoding of our world(s)
Experience
Traces Concepts
Stimuli
External
Expression
Embodied
Cognition
V
VV
Patterns in the World
Patterns in our MindsPatterns as Art / Artifacts
Recursive transfer of form, and shaping of the individual, the collective, and ‘reality’, mediated by patterns
Finidori – Work in progress
Form
ing
Generating
Transform
ing
Patterns
that Connect

How well do we leverage the versatility of patterns?
Ulrich saw the timeless way of building as “a call to re-create
our observational languages, in order to address systemic
issues”, because patterns ”combine observational and design
qualities”. In "The Art of Observation: Understanding Pattern Languages." Journal of
Research Practice 2, no. 1 (2006).
But… are we going as far as we could go?
Ø How well do we leverage the observational quality of patterns?
Ø How well do we involve patterns in our observational languages?
Ø How well do we leverage patterns as signs that can help transfer
form from the world, to our minds, to our arts and artifacts, in
recursive and [re]generative ways?

Alexander:
“Patterns in our minds are, more or less, mental images of the patterns in the
world: they are abstract representations of the very morphological rules which
define the patterns in the world
However, in one respect they are very different. The patterns in the world merely
exist. But the same patterns in our minds are dynamic. They have force. They are
generative. They tell us what to do; they tell us how we shall, or may, generate
them; and they tell us too, that under certain circumstances, we must create them”
“Each pattern is a rule which describes what you have to do to generate the
entity which it defines.” TWB p.182
Ø Has there not been a slippage of focus from the world, to our minds, to an urge
to create, that has drawn the focus of our attention away from the patterns
observed in the order and dynamics of things, and from our capacity to judge
how whole, beautiful, regenerative, desirable they may be?
Haven’t we restricted our view of patterns?

Alexander acknowledged the versatility of patterns:
“Each pattern is a three-part rule, which expresses a relation between a
certain context, a problem, and a solution.
As an element in the world, each pattern is a relationship between a certain
context, a certain system of forces which occurs repeatedly in that context, and
a certain spatial configuration which allows these forces to resolve themselves.
As an element of language, a pattern is an instruction, which shows how this
spatial configuration can be used, over and over again, to resolve the given
system of forces, wherever the context makes it relevant.
The pattern is, in short, at the same time a thing, which happens in the world,
and the rule which tells us how to create that thing, and when we must create
it. It is both a process and a thing; both a description of a thing which is alive,
and a description of the process which will generate that thing.” TWB. p.247
Ø How do these definitions work together in practice?
How well do we leverage the versatility of patterns?

How effective is Problem-Solution association?
In terms of stability in “space”:
Different points of view,
and tradeoffs
Sets of entangled
problems >
“problématique” that
can be decomposed
No clear boundaries
(problems defined as
‘social arrangements)
Manifestation at different
levels and hidden
mechanisms, “nested”
problems
… but leverage points
removed from problems,
solutions do not apply to
parts
Many possible
interpretations of problems
contradictory solutions
In terms of stability over “time”:
Unintended
consequences
Toxicity if over-applied
or aggregated
Context/problem and design
coevolving in time
New configurations and behaviors (aka patterns)
generated to be assessed over time
Time is key, often neglected… When does the role of the designer stops?

The problem-solution association risks ‘freezing’ the pattern
in a prescriptive mode.
Losing the ability to assess the relevance of the problem
description and appropriateness of the solution over time.
Losing the ability to ‘fit’ the solution over time to the
evolution of the context in relation to a desired dynamic
and/or end quality.
Ø Could context, problem, solution be described as
(observable) patterns to be monitored over time?

The ‘fitness’ defined in a lose way? Alexander:
“in the case of a real design problem, even our conviction
that there is such a thing as fit to be achieved is curiously
flimsy and insubstantial. We are searching for some kind of
harmony between two intangibles: a form which we have
not yet designed, and a context which we cannot properly
describe.” Notes p.26
Ø How about fitness to purpose and constantly adapting
intermediary goals to desired/ideal state/ behavior or outcome?
Ø Purpose-seeking, rather than problem solving or problem
seeking?

An enabler
for
A rule
An Instruction
A behavior?
A set of forces?
A mechanism?
A process?…
generative of other “things”?
A structure?
A configuration?
Patterns as ‘things’ and generative processes?
Pattern
A “process”
to generate that thing
A “thing”
that is “alive”
Construction (direct ‘work applied’)
Development (seed planted)
Autopoiesis (self-reproduction of properties)
Emergence (self-generating unexpected properties)
Evolution (self-adaptation)
Types of generative processes
A “pattern in the world”?
An ‘experience”?
A “quality”?
How, in the act of design, to identify,
account for, act upon generative
processes we cannot control or
influence?

Configurations, processes and generativity
Ø What is the “thing” to be designed or transformed? What are
the effects and behaviors sought out?
Ø How would the design combine with or affect other
generative processes that cannot directly be transformed,
and what effects would these combinations result in?
Ø How to ‘peel the onion’ or ‘unpack’ the different processes
and mechanisms at play at different levels and scales, in
both current and desired systems behavior?
Ø How could observational patterns help identify and formulate
these, and help anticipate and evaluate them over time?
Ø How does this affect the role and responsibility of designers?

The complexity of the pattern form
Pattern as documented structure > many ‘aspects’:
context
problem,
forces,
solution,
etc...
known uses,
pros,
cons,
figure,
examples,
resulting context,
rationale,
related patterns,
How to avoid confusion
among some of the
aspects?
How are these aspects
systemically related?
How are the different
levels of generativity
rendered?
How could structure
enable interconnection
and reuse of patterns?
How could this enable
effective navigation of
complex systems?
How to deal with
differences of perception /
interpretation,
representation?

1. Acknowledge and leverage the semiotic properties of patterns
2. Use patterns as systemic research / boundary objects
3. Sort out different aspects and levels of generativity involved
4. Use pattern language to describe systems features
5. Adopt a modular pattern structure
6. Semantically interconnect patterns
Possible ways forward

Leverage the semiotic nature of patterns
Enabling networks of understanding
and meaning
Interpretation
Object
experienced
Sign-Vehicle
Pattern
That Connects
Patterns function as mediators between
our external world(s) (the objects /
phenomena our attention is directed to)
and the internal world of ideas, allowing
a connection between the object,
its representation, and it’s
interpretation.
and the constant
recursive decoding and
encoding of systems
Patterns can be used as boundary or
mediating objects to confront and connect
multiple representations and experiences
of reality as they evolve over time
Sources Peirce –Brier – Finidori

Pattern as action research and scientific object, beyond Cunningham & Mehaffy’s
suggestion (Plop 2013).
Pattern as boundary object, mediating and connecting multiple interpretations and
representations in participatory inquiry. A way to explore, confront and record different views
and interpretations, and controversies. In particular applied to our shared phenomenological
experiences and ‘unknowns’, jointly discovered. Getting a collective grasp of the elephant...
The Johari Window
Use pattern as systemic research / boundary object
Illustration: Dave Gray

What are we looking at? Where are we situated?
What are we transforming? Creating? Patterns as outcome, behavior, structure?
How do we assess/evaluate if we are on track?
Some directions to explore:
Examples of ontological frameworks:
Sort out the different aspects and levels involved
By Ukanneng - Own work, CC BY-SA 3.0,
https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?curid=39936022
The Function-Behaviour-Structure Framework
The Situated Function-Behaviour-Structure
Framework

Use pattern language to describe systems features
Near decomposability of complex systems – graspable by the mind- enabling
context adaptive modelling, probing of each association, and networks of
adaptive solutions.
Desired
configuration & behavior
Transformation
Process
Current
configuration & behavior
Current patterns Desired patterns/possibilitiesTransformation
patterns

Patterns as units of decoding/encoding, used in a modular approach to patterns?
With characteristics as ‘tags’?
Adopt a modular pattern structure
Alexander:
“Each one of these patterns is a
morphological law, which establishes a set
of relationships in space.
And each law or pattern is itself a pattern
of relationships among still other laws,
which are themselves just patterns of
relationships again.
For though each pattern is itself apparently
composed of smaller things which look like
parts, of course, when we look closely at
them, we see that these apparent "parts"
are patterns too.”
Cunningham & Mehaffy - Plop 2013
Henshaw - Purplsoc 2015

Semantically interconnect patterns
The world wide web is born from the unresolved quest to integrate information
diversity through single centralized systems and format standards.
Instead Tim Berners Lee made information inter-operable through the hyperlink
and communication protocols.
Isomorphic and homomorphic patterns could be inter-connected into networks or
clusters, meta-stabilizing around strong ‘centers’ -towards mediated universals...

Thank you
Helene Finidori
PhD Candidate - University of Hull, Centre for Systems Studies
Coordinator - Research Group Systems Science and Pattern Literacy at the Bertalanffy Center for
the Study of Systems Science (BCSSS)
Affiliate Researcher - Evolution, Complexity and COgnition group (ECCO)
Senior Research Fellow - The Schumacher Institute

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