purplsoc

Pattern language is not for wicked problems, said Max Jacobson, coauthor with Christopher Alexander of the 1977 A Pattern Language: Towns, Building, Construction. In addition, the conventional definition of an Alexandrian pattern as “a solution to a problem in context” when applied to social change might better use the term “intervention”, rather than “solution”.

These are two of the major ideas that emerged at Purplsoc 2017 conference last October. A 90-minute workshop was run in parallel with other breakouts.

For about the first hour, vocal participants included Max Jacobson (who had given a plenary talk on “A Building is not a Turkish Carpet“), Christian Kohls (who gave a plenary talk on “Patterns for Creative Space“) and Peter Baumgarnter (one of the Purlpsoc chairs).

As an impetus to discussion, we stepped through slides that had been posted on the Coevolving Commons.

For people who would like the next-best experience to being there, the slides have now been matched up with the digital audio recording, for viewing as a web video.

For devices decoupled from the Internet, downloadable video files are portable. Read more... (2213 words, 1 image, estimated 8:51 mins reading time)

Video

H.264 MP4

WebM

daviding March 3rd, 2018

Posted In: pattern language, philosophy, systems

Tags: christopher alexander, max jacobson, pattern language, purplsoc

Leave a Comment

The pattern language community — followers of Christopher Alexander’s approach — is distributed globally. I participated in PLoP 2014 at Allerton Park, Illinois last September, and then attended AsianPLoP 2015 in Tokyo last March. I had been eyeing the PUARL (Portland Urban Architecture Research Laboratory) conference for fall 2015, but then heard that the event was being incorporated into Purplsoc for 2015. I originally couldn’t justify a trip to Europe for the Purplsoc (Pursuit of Pattern Language for Societal Change) 2015 conference, but then its timing turned out to be back-to-back with the ISIE conference. So, just 3 weeks before the conference, I booked a triangular routing to arrive just in time for the start on July 3, in Krems, Austria.

On the Friday, the program started with some plenary session keynotes:

Hermann Czech, “Remarks about the Truth and the Whole” [digest]
“Opening”, with Peter Baumgartner; a delegate of the Mayor of the City of Krems; Monica Kil; Christian Hanus; Hajo Neis [digest]
Wolfgang Stark, “Performative Patterns for Innovation: The Power of Tacit Knowing in Social Systems” [digest]

Saturday morning started with a keynote.

Takashi Iba, “Pattern Language 3.0 and Fundamental Behavioral Properties” [digest] [slides on slideshare.com]

The rest of Saturday morning had parallel streams. I was in the Pattern applications and practices session.

Hajo Neis and Perrin Wright, “Up and Out: Oregon Tsunami Wayfinding Survival Language” [digest]
Taichi Isaku, “The Cooking Language: Applying the Theory of Properties and Patterns into Cooking” [digest] [slides on slideshare.com]
Hiroshi Nakano, “Japanese Spirituality and Pattern Language” [digest]
David Ing, Service Systems Thinking: From Environmental Structure to a New Generative Pattern Language [abstract + presentation slides]

By Saturday afternoon, some of the parallel sessions were being juggled. I attended:

Wolfgang Rang, “Early Experiments with A Pattern Language” [digest]
Thomas Hruschka and Wolfgang Stark, “EcoBusiness Plan Vienna: An Organizational Pattern Language for Networking Sustainability In and Between Companies” [digest]

To close out Saturday, there was a plenary panel:

“Christopher Alexander’s Ethics: An Ethic of Design”, with David West, Peter Baumgartner, Christian Kohls, Helmut Leitner, Hajo Neis, and Till Schummer [digest]

Sunday morning opened with a most impressive plenary keynote:

Howard Davis, “Pattern Languages and the New Productive City” [digest]

The Sunday parallel session on Pattern languages for societal change had one impromptu workshop set up, before the scheduled one. Read more... (568 words, 2 images, estimated 2:16 mins reading time)

Hajo Neis, Takashi Iba and Helene Finidori, “Pattern Languages 1.0, 2.0, 3.0 and 4.0″ [digest]
Norihiko Kimura and Takashi Iba, “The Fundamental Behavioral Properties” [digest]

daviding August 10th, 2015

Posted In: pattern language

Tags: christopher alexander, pattern language, purplsoc

One Comment

qoto.org/@daviding (Mastodon)

daviding shared a status by antlerboy@mastodon.social February 9, 2019
@daviding Wittgenstein:"6.54 My propositions are elucidatory in this way: he who understands me finally recognizes them as senseless, when he has climbed out through them, on them, over them. (He must so to speak throw away the ladder, after he has climbed up on it.)"
New status by daviding February 9, 2019
Dinner with @rms @fsf inviting the activists #CivicTechTO to gain some insight into discussions on privacy concerns #QuaysideToronto. We outlined but didn't delved into the complexity of three levels of government involved in #WaterfrontTO. (Royal Myanmar, Homer Avenue, Etobicoke, Ontario) 20190208
New status by daviding January 24, 2019
Each of us can find different meaning from the same words. > The poetic prose of ancient Chinese philosopher Zhuangzi, for example, is a stunning piece of compressed thought and meaning with a deft touch of humour: ”The fish trap exists because of the fish; once you’ve gotten the fish, you can forget the trap. […]
daviding shared a status by hibbittsdesign@mastodon.social January 12, 2019
New blog post: Cascadia Open Education Summit Proposals (feedback welcome!)🤞1️⃣Using Markdown and Git Workflow for Open Courses and Resources2️⃣Using the Modern File-based Grav CMS as a Personal Open Platform in Educationhttps://www.hibbittsdesign.org/blog/posts/2019-01-10-cascadia-open-education-summit-proposals#OER
New status by daviding January 11, 2019
Research in #resilience #science: "if there were global tipping points, they will rise from the interaction of local tipping points that would amplify each other. But the question of which tipping elements can interact and how remained unanswered" writes #JuanRocha context https://twitter.com/juanrocha/status/1083196454703906818 "Cascading regime shifts within and across scales" | Dec, 2018 at https://www.juanrocha.se/publication/cascadingrs/

on IngBrief

Contextual dyadic thinking (Lee, 2017)
Contextual dyadic thinking is proposed by Keekok Lee in her 2017 The Philosophical Foundations of Classical Chinese Medicine. This is as a way of appreciating Chinese implicit logic, as an alternative to dualistic thinking that has developed over centuries in Western philosophy.
Dao, de, wei, wuwei (Lai 2003)
Appreciating wei and wuwei has led to the context of dao and de, in the writings of Karyn L. Lai. The scholarly review acknowledges prior interpretations of de and dao.
Engineering Resilience vs. Ecological Resilience (Holling, 1996)
For @theNASciences in 1996, #CSHolling clarified definitions of resilience, with engineering seeking one equilibrium state, while ecology recognizes many. Those who emphasize the near-equilibrium definition of engineering resilience, for example, draw predominantly from traditions of deductive mathematical theory (Pimm,. 1984) where simplified, untouched ecological systems are imagined, or from traditions of engineering, where the motive […]
Service coproductions as reciprocal activities
In addition to extrinsic economic exchange, #JohnMCarroll #JiaweiChen #ChienWenTinaYuan #BenjaminHanrahan @ISTatPENNSTATE say service coproductions relying on all participants to collaborate in both economic exchange and social exchange. Service coproduction is a special case of service provision in which the roles of service provider and service recipient both require active participation. Examples include healthcare, education, and […]
Science and Society in East and West | Joseph Needham | 2004
In researching #SystemsChange, fundamental differences in science and philosophy in the west and the Chinese were surfaced by #JosephNeedham. A useful translation of wéi and wú wéi (i.e. 為 and 無為 , or 为 and 无为) is the ways of "human will" and "nature" as juxtaposed.
Wiki as computational platform
Thinking forward on #federatedwiki, rather than backwards by @wardcunningham. > [Federated wiki] is a computational platform for the collaborative construction of things that work and will continue to work as platform technology evolves underneath it. > Too much thinking about wiki as a note-taking system will just hold it back.

on Media Queue

2018/03/13 Tara Vancil, “Imagine This: A Web Without Servers” (web video)
Having heard mentions of Beaker Browser, this video helped to explain how editing and publishing web pages could be simplerRead more ›
2013/07/27 Beau Lebens “Taking WordPress to the Front End with O2” (web video)
The WordPress O2 plugin with P2-Breathe theme results in a Facebook-like or Twitter-like streaming interface. The idea was first presented in 2013, evolving from the P2 theme in 2009 (originally launched as Prologue in 2008) when hosted on wordpress.com. “Beau…Read more ›
2016/09/10 Tim Ingold, “The Sustainability of Everything” (web video)
Talk at the Centre for Human Ecology, Glasgow, announced at http://www.che.ac.uk/tim-ingold-talks-about-the-sustainability-of-everything-10th-sept-2016/ Video posted at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ncLv9Gk7XrI and https://vimeo.com/182572764 This digest was created by editing the text transcript generated by Youtube. View the video yourself for a more authentic reproduction. Lapses, grammatical…Read more ›
2016/09/07 “One World Anthropology | Tim Ingold | AIBR
Plenary presentation by Tim Ingold, at the 2nd @AIBR_ International Conference of Anthropology. The 2nd AIBR International Conference of Anthropology brings together anthropologists from different parts of the world under the theme “Identity: Bridges, Thresholds, and Barriers.” [….] [6:58] So…Read more ›
Service Platforms, Living Labs, The Future of Open Innovation | Henry Chesbrough | Sept. 2016 | Berkeley Exec Ed (web video)
Responses @HenryChesbrough on service platforms, living labs, and the future of open innovation. Since 2003, he has provided a precise definition, as the godfather of open innovation. InFocus Podcast with Dr. Henry Chesbrough. Dr. Chesbrough is the Program Director for…Read more ›
2016/05/11 “Apache Open Tech is fueling tomorrow’s game changing innovations” | Todd Moore | ApacheCon North American 2016 (web video)
History of open source at IBM from 1998 @tmmoore_1 @ApacheCon NA 2016, and current IBM Open Cloud Architecture. Todd Moore, VP of Open Technology at IBM will share a retrospective of IBMs deep roots ASF and then follow with some…Read more ›

on daviding.com

2019/02 Moments February 2019
Reduced exercise outside with a cold and snowy February, with excursions out of the house to warm places with family, friends and colleagues.
2019/01 Moments January 2019
January in Toronto has lots of intellectual offerings and artistic exhibitions to attract the curious out of warm homes, through cold and snow.
2018/12 Moments December 2018
Tried to have a normal month, with a busy social calendar of birthdays, a funeral plus Christmas season, while daily temperatures hovered just above freezing.
2018/11 Moments November 2011
Mentally busy month with a conference coming to town, and maintaining the regular pattern of local meetings, travel around town only by bicycle.
2018/10 Moments October 2018
October had more bicycling cross-town as fall temperatures declined, plus a 6-day trip to Portland Oregon for pattern language conferences.
2018/09 Moments September 2018
September in Toronto is a month of festivals and restarting the regular pace of life.

Coevolving Innovations

… in Business Organizations and Information Technologies

Exploring the Context of Pattern Languages

Purplsoc 2015 digests and presentation