CLA workshop
2022-07-30 Sat — Noorah Alhasan, Joe Corneli, Leo VivierIntroduction
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For this workshop design, we draw on Causal Layered Analysis methods to bring together a group of people who haven’t worked together before, get them onto the same page, and scaffold collaborative action.
We want our methods to be transferable between contexts. Topics we’re currently exploring include public space, anticipatory methods, andthe future of free software. We envision these topics eventually weaving together around larger and longer scale collaboration around massive problems.
Our workshop has three phases, and ideally we would have several hours to run it, though with adaptations it can be run in less than an hour.
Phase One
In the first phase of the workshop we build a shared understanding of the context and relationships that exist in that context. We use interactive activities to scaffold the process. The result will be a set of scenarios and dimensions.
Phase Two
The second phase of the workshop, we ask participants to take on roles that explore the scenarios. Our aim is to create an orientation to action that will outlive the workshop itself.
Phase Three: The future
The workshop will have both a local and potentially a global legacy,
Potentially morphing into a place-based collaborative spaces...
Phase Four: Stitching everything together
... and local sites may link up to become part of a broader movement.
Summary of Methods
[ ] Causal Layered Analysis. In both phases of the workshop we think in terms of CLA’s four layers: Litany, System, Worldview, and Myth. In Phase 1, the output of each preceeding layers feeds into the next one; when we get to the Myths later, we have a shared perspective. We then work our way back through the previous layers in the second phase of the workshop, envisioning a new Litany (e.g., future newspaper headlines).
[ ] Design Patterns. The defined sets of problems that participants are used to solving comprise a simple ‘design pattern language’. Prior to the workshop: we should do some background research on participants to develop hypotheses about what their patterns might look like. (This is especially important as a way to bring in themes, approaches, and hypotheses that are important to the workshop sponsors!) During the workshop: we will refactor these patterns to bring about new ways of working.
[ ] Project Action Review. In this setting we want to ask people to imagine future actions, with attention to unexpected perturbations and variations (e.g., what can go wrong, what they might have to learn, things they might need to make, etc.).
Further details are available in a separate preprint. We’ve distilled the main things that participants will need to know into several short handbooks, included here as Appendices , , , and .) Indeed, partipants will only need to familiarize themselves with one of these, and we can do that during the workshop itself.
Related work
Our methods, derive from experience with the Peeragogy project, particularly our use of design patterns, project action reviews, and short trainings for multiple roles. Although the specific methodological synthesis is unique, we are not the only people working on related topics. Here we limit ourselves to a few examples:
Doughnut Economics — “the Doughnut offers a vision of what it means for humanity to thrive in the 21st century - and Doughnut Economics explores the mindset and ways of thinking needed to get us there.” More specifically: “The social foundation forms an inner boundary, below which are many dimensions of human deprivation. The environmental ceiling forms an outer boundary, beyond which are many dimensions of environmental degradation.”
Earthwatch — “connects people with scientists worldwide to conduct environmental research and empowers them with the knowledge they need to conserve the planet.”
Like the proponents of these efforts, we are steeped in the values of citizen science and open research.j We also believe that our methods can scaffold complex interactions between citizens and experts, to achieve more integrated action than traditional conservation and development projects. Thus, we can help to further and consolidate the aims of projects like the above.
Nevertheless, we should be clear that this point of view is currently somewhat speculative. Each of our patterns represents a hypothesis that can be tested in practice and refined. This document is an evolving record of that process.
Before the workshop
As mentioned, the workshop organizers should do some background research on project participants and prepare some simple design pattern descriptions based on their public profiles. We can make use an analogy between this four-part adaptation of the pattern template:
Problem ... Solution ... Rationale ... Actions ...
and the four CLA layers to frame the patterns.
Our client for the public space workshop, Abby Tabor, suggested three themes, which we've translated into patterns and immediate next steps, using the DPL template. We also have developed some patterns in advance of our Anticipation 2022 workshop, which play a similar role in that context. These patterns presented in the subsections below as indicative examples. Further brief examples of patterns can be found in the Designer Handbook, Appendix .
NB. In any particular workshop, any preferred set of patterns can replace the current contents of the Designer Handbook!
Example: “Public Space as Public Health”
Disorder :: Creating conditions in which adaptative systems learn over time
Problem
People tend to live in their own worlds, comfortable with their abilities and limitations. However, when they encounter something shocking they have trouble reacting appropriately.
Solution
Sennett suggests that human environments should be designed so that people encounter difference. This enhances our repertoires for thinking about things in complexity.
Rationale
This pattern can be used when we're thinking about designing cities (e.g., at the level of an exposed, reusable infrastructure) but it can also be used when designing other human interaction scenarios.
Actions
[ ] ...
The Natural Contract :: A reconsideration of our relationship with our environment
Problem
The social contract is said to describe an implicit agreement that allowed humans to form collectivities, leaving a state of nature. This ‘nature’ is presumed to accord with human reason. And yet, the limits of this Enlightenment philosophy have become clear, in light of the effects of modern human life on the globe.
Solution
Michel Serres proposes an alternative pact with nature that is no longer parasitic, but symbiotic. This requires thinking in wholes, and in closed circuits: "by natural contract above all the precisely metaphysical recognition, by each collectivity, that it lives and works in the same global world as all the others"
Rationale
This perspective is friendly with cybernetics, although cybernetics may not have the final word on the kinds of creative breakthroughs that are needed to bring about needed change. Furthermore, it may be difficult to engage with ‘nature’ in the way that Serres asks us to, given our tendency to think in terms of socially meaningful symbols. However, this pattern provides something like a compass direction: whether we use it for steering or for something else is up to us.
Actions
[ ] ...
Dissolving boundaries :: Between self and environment
Problem
Life in modern democracies is often characterised by shrink-wrapped food, waste that is taken away automatically, and exercise in gyms or yoga studios. We often see the environment as something to consume, rather than as something that we live in symbiosis with. However, despite the many benefits of modern living, some of its patterns are associated with poor health outcomes.
Solution
Life tends to cross boundaries in a complex web. Social structures also change how we think about boundaries: forexample, consider the 2003 Land Reform Act in Scotland, which allows camping anywhere. When we dissolve boundaries between elements of the environment, we see things in a new way and can encourage the health of the whole.
Rationale
To see ourselves as part of a greater whole is step towards radical action. Everyone has access to a way experiencing the world in which "We stop imputing the sense of solidity that creates a sense of separation [and yet] do not shut off the senses in any way. Actually, we shed the veneer, the films of confusion, of opinion, of judgment, of our conditioning, so that we can see the way things really are" This necessarily happens "interfaced with the phenomenal world" Living creatures have a tendency to be biased towards precise information, even if this information isn’t true. Dissolving boundaries can allow more holistic informative patterns to take shape. Nevertheless, care should be taken not to dissolve the self into unwholesome relational systems.
Actions
...
Example: “Anticipating Anticipation”
Open Future Design
Problem
People need to coordinate, plan, and maintain social cohesion. If a culture can develop based on shared learning BUT there is no oracle that can tell us what to expect
Solution
Use design pattern methods to articulate multiple futures. This can co-evolve with further patterns, e.g., developing:
a language for projects → Roadmap (Corneli et al, 2015), (…)
a language of roles → Play to Anticipate the Future, (…)
a language of future scenarios → (…)
Rationale
Examples include this pattern and Play to Anticipate the Future.
Actions
[ ] Flesh out this pattern language.
[ ] This starting point has been expanded with several further patterns linked with the workshop design: Play to Anticipate the Future, Roadmap, Kaijū Communicator, Historian, Analyst, Designer, Dérive Comix, Meaning Map, Reinfuse Expertise, Project Action Review. Are these the right patterns?
Play to Anticipate the Future
Problem
You are engaging with friends, colleagues or acquaintances. If you want to explore possible futures BUT time travel does not exist;
Solution
Play a game that lets you experience a plausible future scenario together.
Rationale
Example: A bipartisan group played a scenario planning game to anticipate the aftermath of a contested US election (Bidgood, 2020).
Actions:
[ ] Transform our scripted presentation for Anticipation 2019 into a game; cf. https://fearlessjourney.info/.
Scenario building activities
Before the workshop to Litany
\noindent Solo Activity: Dérive Comix (2 hours max)
Walk for one hour around your neighbourhood. Address some or all of the following questions, possibly documenting them with photos, text, or video clips.
What are you observing (sight, sound, smell)? What are the obvious things? What are the sites of meaning, e.g., a bowl that is more than just ‘a bowl’? Where is meaning made unclear or fragmented? What are you experiencing (feelings, thoughts, first impressions)? How have things changed? (It’s OK to get lost, but if you’re feeling lost when reading these instructions, you may want to read this short intro to the dérive.)
Follow up by preparing your materials to share in a succinct fashion, e.g., as slides, sketches, a zine, a map, or some PostIt notes.
Litany to Systems
Small Group Activity: Find the dots
Join together with other workshop participants in small groups to share your results from the previous activity, and cluster the themes that you find there.
Systems
Solo/Pair Activity: Advice from a Caterpillar
Reflect on your observations, and use them to describe your perspective. You might comment on aspects of your values, professional training, and life experiences that led you to make the observations you did, as well as the direct circumstances that contributed to shaping your experience.
Systems to Worldview
\noindent Small Group Activity: Map-making
Return to your small groups and bring together the themes you identified earlier. Informed by your reflections, work together with the group to arrange the information on a map. Notice that since people navigated different physical locations, your ‘map’ is likely to be somewhat abstract. Where it makes sense, the map should record different perspectives from people in the group. For example, the older people might perceive the place they explored to be a village, while younger people perceive it to be a settlement on the outskirts of town. You might have different perspectives on what’s missing. Try to articulate such complexities.
Worldview
Small Group Activity: Problem identification
Working together with the small group, talk about any problems you noticed. How does the map represent stressful or concerning experiences? What are some alternative histories or alternative futures that would describe how the circumstances would have changed?
Worldview to Myths
Full Group Activity: Dimension analysis
Coming back together with the full group, arrange the maps you created across a set of dimensions. Two dimensions would be traditional: creating a 2-by-2 grid with "best" in the upper right, "worst" in the lower left, and so on — but feel free to use as many dimensions as you wish. For example, it could be helpful to use the Theory of Basic Human Values to organise the scenarios.
Myths
Full Group Activity: Scenarios
Working together with the full group, use the dimensions you created in the previous activities (together with the maps and stories) to give descriptive names to some scenarios for the future. These should sum up the map(s) in each quadrant (or more generally, segment) from the diagrammatic analysis.
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Intermezzo: From Phase 1 to Phase 2
The goal here to run something akin to an inception. Our preliminary postulate is that, if people could change things on their own, they would have done it already, or work would at least be in progress. Our goal therefore is to challenge their views, so that they leave the workshop with a modified understanding of how the world works (including the myths that motivate them, but more broadly with the ability to orchestrate complex change).
Here we introduce four roles. The attendees are broken into four corresponding groups, each to be given a short training. Then participants will be put into teams of four, with one person from each role in every team.
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HISTORIAN. You are the custodian of the scenario, and how it might come to be realised or avoided.
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KAIJU COMMUNICATOR. You are responsible for describing perturbations to the scenario.
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ANALYST. You will find meaningful symbols in the journey.
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DESIGNER. You are responsible for helping the team put together solutions to problems that arise.
Scenario exploration activities
Myths
He trains himself, ‘I will breathe in focusing on inconstancy.’ He trains himself, ‘I will breathe out focusing on inconstancy.’ He trains himself, ‘I will breathe in focusing on dispassion... cessation... relinquishing.’
\noindent Team Activity: Dérive Comix Part 2
Explore your scenarios together in your imagination and discuss what you find there. What are some of the things you observe from the perspective of your new role? What things that you observe from the perspective of your prior training and experience?
Myths to Worldview
"...the cognitive mechanisms responsible for implicitly learning novel patterns of association are enhanced by the presence of a meaning threat."
\noindent Team Activity: Connections from Kafka
The \fcolorbox{deepmagenta}{deepmagenta!20}{Kaiju Communicator} should now develop and communicate significant purturbations to the scenario.
Worldview
\noindent Team Activity: A path forward
Work to develop a story of the future evolution to the scenario, taking into account the meaning threats.
Worldview to Systems
\noindent Team Activity: Back to reality
As this process develops, the\fcolorbox{aureolin}{aureolin!20}{Analyst} should build a tableau of 4 meaningful symbols indexed to the four CLA layers, summarising the exploration above.
Systems
\noindent Team Activity: New patterns
As this process develops, the\fcolorbox{dimgray}{dimgray!20}{Designer} should write down some new design patterns that relate to the skills of participants.
Systems to Litany
\noindent Team Activity: Project action (p)review
As this process develops, the \fcolorbox{aqua}{aqua!20}{Historian} should write down next steps for participants to take after the workshop. These actions might help people learn the skills they need to bring about any beneficial aspects of the scenario (e.g., to prepare for an adaptive response to a challenging situation). The actions may need to be scaffolded by new tools, policies, or other innovations: write these down, also.
Myths-to-Litany Loop
\noindent Team Activity: Start over
Reform groups, and run the exercises from Myths () with a new \fcolorbox{aqua}{aqua!20}{Historian}. The new Historian should recap key points from the PAR from the previous group’s Systems-to-Litany exercise (), and the team should then explore the new scenario, following all of the steps between and again. This process can be repeated more than once as time allows. As you work through this activity, feel free to introduce connections with the previous scenario(s) you already explored, although the new Historian won’t be familiar with them.
Closing
\noindent Full Group Activity: Share back We’re at the end of our time together, let’s share back any crucial points with a full-group PAR.
Review the intention: what do we expect to learn or make together?
Establish what is happening: what and how are we learning?
What are some different perspectives on what’s happening?
What did we learn or change?
What else should we change going forward?
After the workshop
Our hope is that partipants will be ready for new forms of action after this workshop. We’re prepared to offer support with tooling and other next steps.
From our side, by running this process in a lot of different spaces, we hope to get a big picture view on how people’s different maps and myths fit together, potentially helping people address bigger problems.
But, again, there are plenty of hypotheses to test out at this level.
The future
Here are some notes about how technology can potentially help people manage actions.
Purposes
Discover new connections between contributed texts, to find new patterns
Maintain a Kanban board to keep track of actions, intentions, patterns
Introduce some genetic principles into the system, so that it adds new structure itself
Model the salience of topics to some group, or, salience of various modes of engagement
Incorporate a rich history of interactions
Allow us to track experiments and their results
...
Features of text tools
| Feature | Example implementation |
| ADD THINGS, DELETE THINGS | |
| Storage | File system |
| PERTURB THINGS | |
| Versioning | Git |
| CONNECT THINGS UP | |
| Hierarchy | File system; Org Mode |
| Hyperlinks | Org Mode |
| Backlinks | Org Roam |
| Stand-off annotations | Arxana |
| Linking to regions in text | NNexus |
| CHECK THINGS OFF | |
| Todo item scheduling and marking | Org Agenda |
| Project hierarchies | zaeph/.emacs.d |
| CONNECT WITH OTHER MAPS | |
| Document analysis | topic modelling |
| Text mining | mal-mode |
Architecture sketches
E.g. “Connections between contributed texts”:
Library of submitted texts
Rerun an indexing operation over all of the texts when a new one is submitted
Index will store relations
E.g., similarity based on bag-of-words.
More complex would be: relationship based on hierarchy of concepts.
Appendices
Analyst’s Handbook
Introduction to Causal Layered Analysis
Sohail Inayatullah developed Causal Layered Analysis (CLA) as a research methodology for examining a topic of concern at four layers that he refers to as the litany, system, worldview and myth. In developing a CLA, none of the four layers is privileged over the others, nor are they examined in isolation. Rather, one moves between them, examining how they relate to one another. One can then integrate these insights to form a more comprehensive basis for understanding what is happening in the present and for anticipating the future. The sections below begin by describing each of the four layers according to the following schema:
Contents: What is found in this layer?
Analysis: Techniques for analysis of this layer.
Literature: Instances of texts which are typically operative at this layer.
The sections then proceed by developing a running example, to further illustrate the four layers and show how such an analysis might proceed. We conclude with some further discussion and an example of the kind of tableau that an Analyst might develop in the Back to reality exercise ().
CLA by example
Litany
Contents :: Observable facts, events, and quantitative trends.
Analysis :: Minimal processing of data.
Literature :: News reports, tax filings, chit-chat.
\noindent Example: Gasp! An Evil Genius has occupied the Ashmolean museum. All entrances are barred shut, no-one can get in or out. For a few weeks this persists---despite efforts at blockading the premises and shutting off utilities, somehow the occupiers are not being starved out and are not letting up. The press and the authorities are baffled as how and why this is going on! It seems that the occupiers are not interested in making public statements or demanding ransom or anything of the sort---apparently all they want to do is to have the museum to themselves and camp out there. After a few week, documents from the museum and detailed plans and images of artefacts from the museum circulate on the web and museum-quality replicas of artefacts from the Ashmolean appear in third-world countries.
System
Contents :: The social, economic, political, and historical forces which shape events.
Analysis :: Technical explanations and interpretation of data within a given paradigm.
Literature :: Editorials and policy institute reports.
\noindent Example: Advances in scanning and printing technology make it possible to produce copies of artefacts indistinguishable form the original. Moreover, since the information is stored and transmitted digitally, anyone with a suitable printer anywhere can make themselves a copy. A system of tunnels allowed the occupiers to evade the blockade and keep themselves supplied. The security system originally designed to keep terrorists from damaging the priceless treasures was instead used to protect the "terrorists" against the "authorities" "besieging" the museum.
Worldview
Contents :: Core values and attitudes which motivate choices and actions.
Analysis :: Uncover deep assumptions and study the mental and linguistic constructs which undergird how people interact with each other and their surroundings. Compare and critique paradigms and discourses.
Literature :: Works of philosophy and critical theory.
\noindent Example: At the bottom of this scenario, there is a clash of worldviews. “What is an artefact?”: Is it an object which plays a role in rituals and gift networks? Is it a source of data for scientific investigations of the past? Is it a part of an artistic and cultural heritage? Who should own the artefact: The heirs of the people who originally made it? Those with the power and wealth to acquire it? Those who have the facilities to curate and study it? Where is the value: Is it spritual? Is it social? Is it economic? Is it scientific? Is it artistic? Does it specially inhere in the original or can a copy share in the value under certain circumstances?
Myth
Contents :: The symbols and tales which give meaning to life.
Analysis :: Study symbols and narratives, and the myths and rituals within which they participate.
Literature :: Poetry, art, anthropology, Jungian analysis.
\noindent Example: In this setting, there is a corresponding clash/clang of myths. We have the myths of the people who made the artefact and the metaphors which it expressed for them. We have the "manifest destiny" and "white man's burden" myths of the colonizers who collected the artefacts and sent them to the museum. We have the more secular myths of people who admire, study and care for the artefacts in the museum today, treasuring them as expressions of the human spirit which continue to serve as a source of meaning and inspiration.
Applying CLA thinking to critiquing the Cooling the Commons patterns
The 41 patterns developed by the ‘Cooling the Commons’ initiative include examples like \textsc{The Night-Time Commons}, which:
… might shift daytime activities into cooler night times. Some places already have these patterns: night markets and night-time use of outdoor spaces. If locally adapted versions of these patterns encourage people to adopt new habits, other patterns will be needed. These will include, for example, ways to remind those cooling off outdoors in the evening that others might be trying to sleep with their naturally ventilating windows open. Such interlinked patterns point to the way pattern thinking moves from the big scale to the small.
Reading this, we were concerned that, while the Cooling the Commons patterns do acknowledge “horizontal complexity”—namely, through interlinked patterns—the process does not deal with the “vertical complexity” coming from the fact that diurnal rhythms are deeply embedded in biology and culture. People have cultural beliefs about the activities that are appropriate for different times of day. Public and domestic rituals are organized about the daily cycle. Times of day have symbolic associations. As far as we could tell, these authors focused on more or less technical issues at the systems level, and did not acknowledge these issues at the worldview and myth levels. A more comprehensive approach might, for instance, re-examine rituals to see which of them relate to the phenomenon of sunrise versus the act of getting up and starting the day, and then figuring out how to adapt these rituals to a new schedule. A suitable research strategy might be to study how practices changed in the past, as with the introduction of industrialization and its clockwork regimentation of the day.
Example shareback tableau
Litany: The dispossessed outside the glass wall
\noindent System: Profit motive replaces social care
\noindent Worldview: The counterculture rises
\noindent Myth: Accessible Clean Water for Recreation
Historian’s Handbook
Example timeline from Radical Transformation in a Distributed Society — Neo-Carbon Energy Scenarios 2050. (Text by Sirkka Heinonen, Joni Karjalainen and Juho Ruotsalainen, © Writers & Finland Futures Research Centre, University of Turku.)
Pathway to DIY Engineers Finland 2050
The world has faced an ecological collapse. Engineer-oriented citizens have organized themselves as local communities to survive. Environmental problems are solved locally, with a practical mindset. Nation states and national cultures have more or less withered away. Global trade has plummeted, so communities have to cope with mostly low-tech solutions.
2015
The first dramatic effects of climate change are seen in the Western countries. In Finland, the effects are not yet really visibly felt, but preparing for the changing climate is taken more seriously than before.
2017
The Finnish government led by the Center Party invests in bio economy, creating jobs all around the country.
2020
Education, especially that of engineers, is steered towards the bio economy and sustainable solutions. Digital services are used increasingly to enable collaboration and distributed practices.
2021
Traditional wood and paper industry has transformed into a biomaterials industry. Almost everything can be manufactured with biomaterials.
2025
Local economies and communities thrive once again in every nook and cranny of Finland. The warming climate is beneficial for the bio economy, as growing seasons are longer than before.
2030
Warming climate causes unrest across the globe. Finns become increasingly isolated and try to stay away from global conflicts. A survivalist mentality gains ground, and local communities try to become self-sufficient.
2035
People start to migrate away from Southern Finland to the inland.
2040
Finns live mostly in self-sufficient small cities and communities and are well-prepared for whatever the global situation might turn into. Unemployment is rare, which eases social tensions and frees resources.
2045
In Finland the pull towards self-sufficient communities is lifestyle- and value-driven, whereas in many parts of the world tight communities are necessary for surviving climate change. While elsewhere localisation of communities often leads to isolation and fragmentation, the Finns still share a common national identity.
2050
The isolation of Finland proves in more and more occasions a two-sided sword. As the global situation becomes increasingly chaotic, allies across borders are welcomed warmly. New global order begins to emerge, but Finland continues its cosy isolation (“impivaaralaisuus”).
Kaijū Communicator’s Handbook
Three example issues from the game Flaws of the Smart City created by Design Friction.
By embedding sensors in the streets, the Smart City is under constant surveillance; monitored by public forces and private interests. Being able to track and record activities has erased the notion of anonymity promised by the urban structure and the crowd. Targeting marginality with these tracking systems is allowing to get rid of, physically and digitally, a specific population in a specific area.
Smart City logic is oriented on a proprietary philosophy. Using closed standards, it carefully picks whom to deal with among a list of designated institutional and business organisations or NGO. This is a locked environment led by market forces and strict partnerships, not by a collective experience. Don’t expect the permission to hack, to tweak or to fork the smart systems.
By integrating technologies into the urban fabric, it is bringing an intrinsic fragility to infrastructure initially protected from this vulnerability. In addition to the inherent risks of cyber-attacks, the absence of flexibility in the hardware and the lack of interoperability between the digital standards are leading to fatal errors. In every meaning of the word.
Designer’s Handbook:
First, three example patterns from ‘Cooling the commons’, then another way to think about patterns.
Pedestrian Linkages -- Cycle Club
Caring for Trees
Site Planning for Coolth
Pedestrian Linkages -- Cycle Club
Type: Ideal •Stage: Delivery •Related Patterns:
Cool Slopes: A pattern of contours
Selecting Shade Trees for Public Open Space
Shaded Pedestrian Linkage
Web Of Public Transportation -- Destination Shuttle
Community Governance
Signage
About this pattern
Bicycles are a low impact means of transportation, particularly for trips under 5km distance. They are an important, cost-effective means of reducing traffic density and promoting healthy exercise. Community-based cycling groups should be formed to promote cycling as a means of transport. For instance, Bike Marrickville is a volunteer-run group of residents promoting cycling and improving the local environment. Local groups can be affiliated with Bicycle New South Wales, the peak body organisation for the promotion of cycling and cycling safety.
Pattern Conditions
Enablers
The development of safe cycling infrastructures, marked lanes, separated pathways, adequate signage, laws that protect cyclists and their access to roadways. Digital platforms have made safe route planning far easier in Sydney. ()
Constraints
Cycling infrastructure and signage remains limited in Western Sydney in particular. Some areas are totally unsafe for cycling. The cultural climate and practices of motorists can make cycling unsafe.
Lack of storage and shower facilities can limit the ability to use cycling as an alternative form of commute transport.
Cycling may not be advisable during heat emergencies and also at times when bushfires bring smoke into cities.
Commoning Concerns
Cycle Club as social commons/transit
Access: Open to cyclists/commuters.
Use: Transportation and recreation, conviviality.
Benefit: Exercise, safety, reduced fossil fuel emissions, reduced congestion.
Care: Community based organisations.
Ownership: Community residents.
Promoting access to cycling means challenging existing patterns of development, transportation and infrastructure as well as cultural norms around transportation and comfort at work. Cycling culture can be gender and class exclusionary---its accessibility to women, low-income or disabled populations would also require sustained advocacy and facilitation from cycling advocates/organisations.
Caring for Trees
Type: Ideal, Remedial •Stage: Planning, Post-occupancy, Delivery •Related Patterns:
Shaded Pedestrian Linkage
Keyline Planning for Healthy Trees
Managing On-Site Water
Establishing Site Forests
Selecting Shade Trees for Public Open Space
About this pattern
For the first five years after a project delivery, the development organisation and residents are responsible for existing public trees and new ones, after which local government authorities take over caring for them. Those first five years are vitally important if the trees, planted and existing, are to be healthy and long-lived. During this time, the community and development organisation can establish policies and strategies for site trees, so that local government can continue with the foundational tree management afterwards, including the on-going appointment of a respected arboriculturalist.
Often people are afraid of big trees in public spaces or private gardens because they may drop branches or fall on cars or houses in severe storms. This can be addressed by consistent arboriculture care (for instance visit the Arboriculture Australia website in resources section). Trees can be encouraged to grow in particular shapes to remain amenable to social commoning. There are various stages to caring for trees so that branches do not fall, and trees remain healthy.
First, trees need deep friable soil, air and water. For trees in open space, start with the Keyline method of preparing planting areas (see the KEYLINE pattern). This will ensure healthy soil and water for good growth. Tree planting in streets and public space need adequate areas and depth of soil (see the pattern SELECTING SHADE TREES FOR PUBLIC OPEN SPACE)
Second, check and manage trees for insect pests Providing the proper cultural care in accordance with climate and needs of a tree species is the best way to prevent insect infestations. Eucalyptus trees, for instance, appreciate supplemental irrigation during prolonged dry spells and experts at the University of California Integrated Pest Management Program suggest watering eucalyptus plants once a month with a drip hose until the top 12 inches of soil become moistened and performing maintenance pruning when pests are waiting out the winter season, in order to avoid attracting insects into freshly cut wood tissue (see Kelsey [n.d.] in the references below).
Third, prune and maintain branch and trunk health to keep structural soundness to withstand storms and strong winds. This can include reducing the weight of the canopy by selectively pruning the ends of the branches.
Cable and brace where branches need more support or have been damaged. Cabling keeps tree branches from splitting at their junction. This involves attaching various types of cables to stronger branches, the trunk, the ground or other anchors. Cabling can also be used to support unusually long limbs or reinforce weak-wooded species.
Dynamic Cabling (or ‘Cobra') allows the limbs to sway, putting less stress on trunk and branches. Thus, tree continues to produce reaction wood (special cells) in response to wind or other stresses. Dynamic systems generally use synthetic ropes instead of cables, and they usually wrap rubber around the branches being supported, rather than relying on metal hardware that has been screwed into the tree. Cobra system is a dynamic tree support system specially designed to be flexible and shock-absorbing with different benefits:
Gentle to trees, self-adjusting to the diameter growth of tree, requires practically no tools, and incorporates a shock-absorbing unit;
Avoids defective growth, the ‘karate effect', abrasion and constriction, wounding;
Encourages trees to grow reaction wood.
Cobra system components include cobra rope, anti-friction hose, expansion insert, shock absorbers (Arbor Culture Pty Ltd, n.d.)
Crown thinning and lifting allows more sunlight to pass and air to flow through the canopy. This is done by removing some secondary branches. Crown lifting raises the height of the crown and allows more space underneath for lawns and gardens.
Good Arboriculturalists can undertake these procedures and maintain your trees with annual inspections.
Pattern Conditions
Enablers:
Undergrounding powerlines means trees can grow full mature form. Streets can become signature avenues.
Assisting local government to lobby for TAFE course on Arboriculture.
Establishing a caring for trees community group is a positive step.
Tree care gives opportunities for residents and children to learn to be ‘citizen scientists' by monitoring specific trees (see Australian Citizen Science Association in the resources section).
Constraints:
On-going cooperation with local government during and beyond the five-year period.
Protocols required to prevent storage or emerging structures within canopy drip-line.
Commoning Concerns
Canopy Trees are one of the most effective ways to cool commons. ‘Cool commons' are spaces and places offering cooler temperatures than surrounding areas. Such commons are used by, and are accessible to, a community of commoners who, to some degree, care for, take responsibility for, and benefit from this coolness.
Access: Unrestricted access and involvement; restricted when undergoing care
Use: Recreation, Biodiversity, wildlife corridors
Benefit: Environmental benefit, carbon capture, amenity of public space
Care: Developer; Local Government; Body Corporate; community; arboriculture consultancy.
Responsibility: Developer; Local Government; Body Corporate; community.
Ownership: Body Corporate; community.
Site Planning for Coolth
Type: Ideal •Stage: Planning •Related Patterns:
Keyline Planning for Healthy Trees
Cool Slopes: A pattern of contours
Managing On-Site Water
Caring for Trees
Selecting Shade Trees for Public Open Space
About this pattern
Cool Winds
Site planning for coolth requires mapping prevailing winds; cool winds in summer and cold winds in winter.
Using tree planting to direct cool winds and block cold winds, can reate turbulence on both sides of solid barriers. This contrasts with open canopy and open fencing, where the wind can pass through without turbulence. Groves of trees, rather than rows, effectively channel prevailing winds and achieve greatest density of canopy when species are mixed.
Canopy Density is increased when trees are crowded; crown branching changes with crowding, providing shorter primary branches and more than twice the volume of other branches. The branching is flatter and crown volume is bigger.
Sun/Shade
Site planning for coolth also requires a sun/shade analysis for 9.00am, 12.00pm, 4.00pm throughout winter & summer.
Winter sunlight is best achieved with deciduous trees. The quality of shade depends on trees' attributes including leaf area; high branch density; multiple canopy layers; canopy transmissivity; canopy size and projection and canopy ventilation.
Pattern Conditions
Enablers:
Channelling summer winds to cool open space can reduce temperatures & humidity. Blocking winter winds facilitates warmth;
Summer shade is increasingly essential, as is winter sun.
Constraints:
Tree management to achieve healthy growth and arboriculture care to prevent falling branches is essential.
Commoning Concerns
Access: open access for public open space; wheelchair access under trees in groves is a dilemma, as it will inhibit soil and root health.
Use: recreation, wildlife corridors, shelter, carbon capture, $\mathrm{O}_{2}/\mathrm{CO}_{2}$.
Benefit: human comfort, environmental contribution.
Care: essential arboriculture, irrigation, fertilization.
Responsibility: Local Government, Corporate Body of Building owners, communities.
Ownership: Corporate Body of Building owners.
Design pattern as hypothesis
The following examples gives a slightly different way of thinking about patterns, linked with the ideas of hypothesis testing, generativity, and computational modelling.
Design Pattern for microbial diversity in civic space
Problem Statement.
The incidence of immune-mediated diseases has increased rapidly in cities. This health burden has been linked to a reduction in biodiverse exposures in childhood, negatively impacting the resilience of the immune system.
Discussion [Containing several scenarios, which are furthermore potential linked by a computational model.]
Microbial diversity is essential to the effective training of the human immune system. Without effective exposures to microbial diversity, the immune system is less able to accommodate encounters with stressors throughout the lifespan (e.g., asthma). There is, however, a tradeoff between TOO MUCH (over exposure: risk of acute illness) and TOO LITTLE (underexposure: poorly refined system) in relation to microbial habitats in the city environment. These trade-offs can be modelled computationally [e.g., potentially using active inference agents].
Candidate proposal [which the model might suggest, and which experiments could otherwise validate/invalidate]
Install publically maintained raised beds for herbs, wild flowers and vegetables in civic spaces.
Workshop ideas
Notes
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