“Life is nested biomes all the way down.” –Merlin Sheldrake

One way to describe the relationship between living wholes (see Working with Wholes) is that they are nested. Intellectually we understand that everything in life is connected, but it is often difficult to actually see the connections, especially as one moves up to larger and more complex systems, so this can become a vague abstraction. The diagram below is included in our book, The Integrative Design Guide to Green Building. Before we had a more comprehensive understanding of the implications and importance of nestedness, I would joke about not really understanding the connections at the Planet level, let alone the Universe. Such thoughts of trying to “see” the vastness of these connections overwhelms us. This is coupled with our cultural conditioning that has us viewing ourselves as both separate from the larger universe and insignificant as individuals in relation to its vastness.

We can easily understand that whole living systems are composed of various parts and pieces with boundaries, functions, structures, etc. Even our typical ways of speaking of systems have us break them down into categorization in the name of simplicity. Unfortunately, this is often where our conditioning has us stop. According to Carol Sanford, this conditioning has us not seeing the way life actually works: “[i]n order to have a different mind at work, we have to move the mind to seeing beyond a flat view of approaches to change to seeing it as a dimensional one.” We often struggle to see this third dimension (see Gurdjieff’s notion that we are third force blind) as our dualistic, binary view of the world tends to dominate so much of our human discourse. In order to engage life regeneratively, Pamela Mang reminds us that, “[w]e need to see three levels of systems in [our] mind. If we stop at the proximate level, we don’t see the life giving exchanges.” Living systems have multi-dimensional complexity, so we need to discover ways to understand this fundamental aspect of life if we are ever going to contribute to life evolving to higher and higher orders of health.

“The world is complex. We need to stop dumbing it down.” –Regenesis

Furthermore, seeing whole living systems in their full dynamism is difficult in the context of our scientific reductionist ways of knowing, let alone seeing those living systems as nested within and interrelated with other larger living systems. Seeing these webworks of dynamic connections requires us to use a different mind, a whole-body seeing that includes our intellectual, emotional and moving centers (mind, heart and body). Thinking from the perspective of whole living systems requires us to examine not the parts and pieces of a complex system, but the relationships, interconnections, cycles, webworks and emergent questions that arise between those pieces. It requires us to begin to see in patterns and processes through synthesis using an imaging mind.

“Systems thinking is “contextual,” which is the opposite of analytical thinking. Analysis means taking something apart in order to understand it; systems thinking means putting it into the context of a larger whole.” –Fritjof Capra

We often use our analytical mind to rationalize and then operate under the mistaken notion that we can remold life as we see fit. The analytical mind in isolation can fallaciously view the world not as it actually is but how the culture is trying to remake it. This is a particular specialty of the domination worldview that is pervasive in our culture.

Take the concept of sustainability. The idea is often presented as the “triple bottom line” and shown in a triangular relationship (see below left). This “flatland” view of sustainability seems to indicate that each should be equally weighted in guiding human doings. This easily allows for a viewing of the relationship between “people, planet, profits” (equity, ecology, economy) as our culture often sees it, with profits controlling people and the planet as “ecosystem services” that only exist to meet human needs (see middle diagram). Of course, this perversely shown set of relationships is not actually how life works. In reality, an economy is nested within, and serves, human relationships, which are further nested within the ecological systems where humans live (see below right). Understanding the right relationship of nested interconnections is not always a simple proposition, but it is critical to discern between relationships that regenerate life and those that degenerate life.

While the concept of nestedness is easy to understand at a surface level, working with living wholes requires us to more fully understand the living wholes within which we (or our projects) play a particular role. Each nested system has a role to play in the health of the systems within which it is ingrained. For example, local economies are nested within a regional economy, which are then nested within national economies, which are then nested within a global economy. When this nested system of interrelationships is appropriately balanced, local economies thrive. A fundamental premise of regenerative practice is that all of our human activities should be place-sourced. In other words, the local economy should be a direct reflection of the place or community from which it emerges. The current global economy, via the concept of neoliberalism (free market capitalism, deregulation and reduction in government spending), seeks to homogenize and “flatland” national and local economies. The affect has been the devitalization of many local economies which then affects their viability over time. Without vitality and viability they no longer have the capacity to evolve to higher orders of health (health being defined as that which enhances life). The global economic system is not in right relationship. It is a system where local wealth is extracted and concentrated elsewhere, instead of freely flowing at the local level. There is considerable push back to this system in the form of pluralistic efforts (e.g. co-ops, credit unions, employee-owned business, etc.) that seek to spread shared economic control at the local level. Such cooperative mindsets align with the way healthy living systems work absent hierarchical structures. So, the role of an economy at all levels should be to create healthy exchanges that allow for all of life to flourish. Ultimately, the health of any living system is dependent upon the health of the systems nested within it.

We apply the same set of ideas to our building projects. Each and every building project is part of a system of both larger and smaller systems, nested within the natural systems of the building site that support the human activities for which the project is designed. This nestedness is not difficult to image in your mind as the relationships that exist between the building occupants and the building itself, the building and the site it is built upon, the building and the community where the building is located, and this community’s relationship to the larger ecology of the bioregion or watershed. Working in one living system always impacts many more living systems, and a fundamental aspect of living systems is that they are always nested within other living systems.

More typically a particular project will focus its attention on the first few sets of relationships (occupants-building and building-site). Other nested sets of relationships may emerge as important, but they tend to be limited to enhancing the viability of the project itself, not the vitality or viability of the community within which it is nested. Such projects also tend to be “place-based” meaning that they are placelessly imposed and could essentially be built anywhere.

To be truly place-sourced, a project must understand the uniqueness or essence (see Manifesting Quiddity) of its place and how that essence may distinctly manifest. The project design then takes direction from the place within which it is embedded while focusing on the project’s potential (see Manifesting Potential) to evolve the capacity of the people and community to higher orders of vitality and viability. This becomes the project’s role. The question becomes – What is your project’s role in the vitality, viability and evolutionary capacity of the larger systems within which it is nested and within which it seeks to continually become more deeply rooted?

“The regenerative potential of a place arises from what makes it unique, but it manifests only when this uniqueness contributes new value to its region or some other larger system. The (regenerative) potential of a project manifests when it helps its place step up to this new value-adding role.” –Pamela Mang/Ben Haggard, Regenerative Development & Design

There is a reciprocal relationship then between the project and the larger living systems within which it is embedded. The vitality and viability of the larger systems are dependent upon the project playing its proper role in evolving greater orders of health through their interconnectedness. Just like the organs in your body, if one is not healthy, it will affect the health of the whole.

“Action on behalf of life transforms. Because the relationship between self and the world is reciprocal, it is not a question of first getting enlightened or saved and then acting. As we work to heal the earth, the earth heals us.” –Robin Wall Kimmerer

Seeing a project nested within its larger whole living systems places it far more firmly within its full context. It allows insights and potential solutions to emerge that would otherwise go unaddressed or undercut the ultimate success of the project. As Carol Sanford notes, “[n]estedness enables us to gain depth perception.”  Viewing a project this way reveals the greater complexity it is immersed within. A fundamental premise in regenerative thinking is: the long-term viability of any project only ever fully manifests if it plays a vital role in the health of the place where it is planted. Planting the project in a good way requires that it contributes to the overall vitality of the place in which it grows. In this way, our projects are simply instruments for more effectively achieving our highest intentions, aspirations, outcomes and effects. Viewing our projects as nested enables us to elevate the order of potential that we can see.

Nestedness and the Phipps Garden Center, Pittsburgh, PA

The Garden Center is located within the southern portion of Mellon Park, which is at the intersection of several neighborhoods including Shadyside, Squirrel Hill, Point Breeze and Bakery Square just south of East Liberty. The Park was the former estate of Richard B. Mellon (part of the area formerly known as millionaire’s row) and contains elements of the former estate including the mansion’s carriage house which became the Garden Center in 1948 (the mansion itself was torn down in 1943).

The whole Park straddles Fifth Avenue with the north side of the park being more active including ballfields and tennis courts. The project is nested within a portion of Mellon Park, the whole of Mellon Park, while the Park is nested within the intersection of diversely different neighborhoods. It also sits on the southern edge of an elevated, relatively flat, glacial deposited, alluvial plain, which is further nested within the eastern end of the City of Pittsburgh.

Phipps began the process of designing the renovation of the building in 2018. Even though the project included a significant amount of community engagement and public inclusion in the process, some of the influential local neighbors of the Park were not pleased with the direction of certain aspects of the initial design, and the project was forced to be reimagined again. The current design iteration began last year and was kicked off with a workshop. While the purpose of the project (see image below) remained unchanged, a big part of the early focus was on how the project related to the Park in a way that would strive to more fully examine its contextual effects.

The design kickoff meeting began with a presentation on The Story of Place (SoP) for East Liberty (put together based upon research from another local project), which is a very short distance away. SoP is a process of identifying what is particularly unique about this place and the way it works, in other words, its essence. The SoP process addresses these core questions:

What is the Core Process of Life in this Place?

The Core Purpose of that Process?

The Value that gets added to the system – as a result of living into the Process and Purpose?

Through a process of researching local history through deep time and up to the present, gaining an understanding of the evolution of the local ecology and socio-economic dynamics, combined with copious interviews of the diversity of people in that particularly unique place, one can begin to discern patterns. Being able to consciously observe those patterns allows the formulation of candidate answers to the questions above.

In the case of East Liberty the following candidates emerged:

Core Process: Elevating Diverse Commons

Core Purpose: Accessible Open Space for Gathering

Core Value: Enabling Expression of Pittsburgh as a Whole

With a better understanding of the project’s context, the project team began to explore Mellon Park and the neighborhoods of which it is a part. In particular, the participants explored the relationships between the Park and its surroundings. Based on the input received at the workshop and taking into account the larger context, essence candidates emerged for the Park:

Core Process: Suspending Flows

Core Purpose: Discovering Connections

Core Value: Fostering Relationships

As mentioned earlier, a fundamental premise of this work is that a successful project seeks to align its essence and needs with the essence of the place within which it is embedded. In this case, the Park itself provides a place of respite and a place to gather as its contributing role within the larger context of that part of Pittsburgh.

With the nested context more fully explored, the second workshop focused on the articulation of project’s aspirations and goals. Project team members were asked to share their aspirations and offer specific project goals. In particular the participants were asked – What do goals look like in a living system nested context?

When viewed within the context of its surroundings, the nature of the original aspirations and goals shifted dramatically. Issues were raised about how the project could serve as an instrument for social equity, for meeting neighborhood needs in underserved communities, for creating connections between the local communities and the local ecology, for generating behavioral change, and for exploring the interconnectivity between seemingly disparate issues like social justice and the environment. New ideas began to emerge about the project’s potential to address these issues within this larger context, both physically and programmatically. These issues continue to inform the project’s design as it develops (as of this writing).

This conscious consideration of the nested systems, within which a project is embedded, opens the potential for any project to more fully play its role in evolving the vitality, viability and capacity to evolve to higher orders of health than can currently be discernable.

What is the nested role of your project in generating and regenerating the health of its place?

How can your project serve as an instrument for enhancing the vitality of its place?

Why is a sense of place important to your project’s communities?

This article continues an eight-part series aimed at exploring how regenerative practices can be used to build our capacity to engage with larger living systems. In particular, we’ll examine how built environment projects can serve as powerful and effective instruments for doing so. These practices are grounded in the Seven First Principles of Regeneration. These principles emerged through the work of Carol Sanford, a wise and insightful elder, and through our work with Carol, Bill Reed, Joel Glanzberg and others over the past decade. Inspired by this continuing work, we will unpack these seven principles through the context of our experiences co-creating habitation. The principles include:

Working with Wholes

Manifesting Potential

Energetic Fields

Manifesting Quiddity

Nested Roles

Nodal Discernment

Developmental Processes

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