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Emergent Intelligence Frames Whole System Design

May 22, 2012 by Marilyn Hamilton

Emergent Intelligence helps us not only see the city as  a whole but to design it as a whole. This gives us a chance to tap into our human hive mind – a mind that transcends and includes our individual minds. This condition arises because each person is massively interdependent on a living collective system in which he or she is embedded.

Where am I seeing evidence that this is emerging in cities? New discoveries like human generated energy  and new building designs that are energy neutral or even energy generating such as we see in Cradle to Cradle certification or where we are changing how we even think about designing energy effective buildings.

Such developments are signficant because, as a dissipative structure the city sucks in resources from its environment and spews out products, by-products and waste to its environment. That is why, when we take into consideration all the cities of the world (where now more than 50% of humanity live), their functioning affects the lives of all people regardless of where they live, inside or outside the city.

If city designers and developers can see the city as if it were a whole system, they may be able to appreciate its embedded wisdom for surviving in its unique life conditions; the mystery of its collective life force; and the tremendous potential it embraces in the energy, information and matter that it embraces. Seeing the city as a whole helps us to truly appreciate the performance of its sub-systems and gives us the context in which we can understand and flow with emergence.

Now What?  Here are three simple rules (principles) for applying Integral City Emergent Intelligences:

1. Survive so all living systems (holons) serve each other’s existence.

2. Adapt all city functions to flow in a closed loop of resource exchange with the environment.

3. Create a self-regenerating feedback loop, by interconnecting human regeneration cycles so that they honour the contributions of each stage of life as they replenish the environment.

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This blog is a preview of the Integral City webinar eLaboratory Hello Human Hive: Welcome Regenerative World – Designing Prosperity Systems for Integral City 2.0, scheduled for September 2012. You are invited to contribute your brilliance as expert, design leader, practitioner, participant. Contact us at elab@integralcity.com

Posted in Emergence, Building - Structures | Tagged , , , , , , | Leave a Comment »

Emergent Designers Seek Energetic City 2050 for Arnhem

May 10, 2012 by Marilyn Hamilton

Emergent Intelligence in the city enables survival, adaptation and regeneration of the whole human system.  Last week I was exploring how designers apply Emergent Intelligence in Arnhem, NL working with Alliander and Freedom Lab to explore Energetic City 2050.

Over the next six months, three teams are exploring how people in the city could generate their own power. Each with their own manifestos, and with a diversity of approaches, Innergy, Markt and Netwerk will explore energy, regenerativity and energetics apparently from all four quadrants of the Integral City.

As designers, in the Human Hive, I am curious to see how they will explore regeneration as it occurs through biological reproduction and inner renewal, shared learning and teaching and coaching others in roles, competencies and capacities? Will self-organizing energy production enable new forms of renewal as the city, like all living systems, will develop new cyclical habits that enable the accumulation, exploitation, distribution and redeployment of resources (the four stages of resilience identified by Gunderson and Holling et al)?

While Arnhem is set in the verdant food production area of eastern Netherlands, by shifting energy sources, how will emergence (a characteristic of living systems), arise from the resonance and coherence of the city system with its agricultural environment? How will the teams design resonance to emerge as the new city systems align externally to the city’s environment? Will they find new ways for the city to literally resonate with its surroundings? With the imaginations of artists, engineers, architects, social workers and IT designers, I am anticipating some surprising emergences and coherences will arise from the realignment of all the elements of the city system so that energy can be optimized. And when both resonance and coherence become synchronized what new capacities may emerge in the city system?

I am excited to see what new capacities for sustainability may emerge as a newly energized city invents new ways to embrace order, strategic planning, caring and sharing and systemizing.

This Experiment is an Inspiring Route to Liberating City Design! Before I left the first (of four) Energetic City 2050 Intensive, I could see the teams were already operating as if the city was not a system of parts, but a whole system of the human species (essentially an ecology of whole-parts or holons). Thus as they explored designs for a system of wholes, the city’s holarchy of  communities, organizations, groups, families and individuals and the built environment were going to open up to whole new potentials.

Kudos to the imaginations behind this daring experiment (Karin Rikkers of Alliander, and Alex VanOost especially) – it opens the way for  the healthy functioning of all the holons in one city and demonstrates how emergence can be a whole new learning methodology for other cities to practise.

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This blog is a preview of a webinar eLaboratory Hello Human Hive: Welcome Regenerative World – Designing Prosperity Systems for Integral City 2.0, scheduled for September 2012. You are invited to contribute your brilliance as expert, design leader, practitioner, participant. Contact us at elab@integralcity.com

Posted in Building - Structures, Emergence, H. Research, Inquiry, Integral Maps | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , | 1 Comment »

Hello Human Hive: Welcome Emergent World

May 8, 2012 by Marilyn Hamilton

Emergent Intelligence is the intelligence that drives resilience. This gives the city the qualities of aliveness: it not only survives, but it adapts and regenerates. This intelligence enables the city to emerge as the  bio-psycho-cultural-social behaviors, intentions, relationships and systems of its citizens interact with the environment they co-create as well as the eco-regional environment the city is situated in.

Emergence, like resilience is a phenomenon of complex adaptive systems. If the city were a bee hive,  we could easily see that the hive adapts through differentiation and integration for the purpose of achieving a hive survival goal – to produce the 40 pounds of honey per year that the hive needs to survive. In the bee hive differentiation exists in the definition of work roles that enable the hive to respond to life conditions. These roles are exhibited by its conformity enforcers (who do most of the work), diversity generators (who generate innovation options), resource allocators (who reward performance towards goal achievement), inner judges (who act as a hive mind to integrate all the roles) and intergroup tournaments (where competing hives ensure that the best local practices become species sustainability practices) . These five roles enable resilience because by optimizing the access to energy resources and the use of that energy for food production and infrastructure, they ensure individual survival, organizational sustainability and species resilience.

When we look at the Human Hive it appears that all these roles are in operation, but the key ingredient that is missing at this stage of city evolution is the agreement and focus on the city’s purpose – which would enable the achievement of a goal. Without that purpose, the goal is absent that clarifies why and how people manifest matter, energy and information for food production, infrastructure development and cultural vibrancy.

The question we must ask ourselves in order to mature our species is “what is the equivalent for the Human Hive of the Bee Hive’s 40 pounds of honey”? Perhaps we will be “coerced” into discovering a whole ecology of city purposes by the global crises that face us now? Only by purposefully working together will we solve the great challenges (aka wars) of climate, governance, technology developments and worldviews.

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This blog is a preview of a webinar eLaboratory Hello Human Hive: Welcome Resilient World – Designing Prosperity Systems for Integral City 2.0, scheduled for September 2012. You are invited to contribute your brilliance as expert, design leader, practitioner, participant. Contact us at elab@integralcity.com

Posted in climate, Emergence | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , | Leave a Comment »

Earth Day: Let’s Celebrate Ecosphere Intelligence Arising in Planet’s Fortune100!!

April 21, 2012 by Marilyn Hamilton

Could it be that we are witnessing an inflection point in the global awareness and embrace of sustainability?

Sean Esborn-Hargens one of the leaders at the forefront of developing the whole field of Integral Ecology  engages the nested voices of Self, Other and the World in ways that are shifting the whole understanding of ecology. Like Brian Eddy who has mapped the Integral Ecological model of the lithosphere, hydrosphere, atmosphere, biosphere and anthroposphere, Sean has been convening conversations with multiple ecological personas in complex cultural and systems environments.

While Sean and Brian are the natural children of the pioneers who opened the paths of the first Earth Day (42 years ago) what other evidence of ecospheric change can we notice on the eve of Rio+20?

Much to my astonishment I listened to CEO’s (and/or their consultants) of the Fortune 100 talk about their sustainability strategies at the Fortune Green Brainstorm earlier this week.

I heard that Coca Cola had invested $1 billion dollars in the mountain farmers of Tanzania so that they could steward the forests in the mountains to protect the hydrological cycle that produces the water that is 98% of the input for Coca Cola’s product.

I heard that Wal-Mart had changed its fleet of trucks to fuel-efficient hybrid 18 wheelers and was using bio-fuel from the cooking fats produced by their restaurants.

I heard that New York City had negotiated a $1 billion deal with the Catskill farmers to preserve the quality of its water sources – rather than spend $6 billion on a new water management plant.

What is happening out there? Is it possible that the Fortune 100 has discovered that when Mother Nature is no longer a ”free” resource, corporations start measuring success in more accountable and transparent ways? Are they realizing for corporate success if not survival they must quantify their external costs as internal costs in order to manage future risks throughout their supply chains? Are the supply chains being drawn into a collaboration not only with the F100 but with related Governments and Civil Society??? Could it be that the circle of care is actually widening because the economies of corporations, cities and nations are waking up to the sensitivity of ecosystems?

When Jared Diamond points out that China has lost 1/3 of its agricultural productivity by destroying its earthworms … and Pavan Sukhdev observes that the cost of manual pollination vs bee pollination is an impressive $7 billion a year (not to mention the $90+ billion value of the agricultural product dependent on it)… and Unilever announces that it is no longer working towards or reporting quarterly results because it is contrary to their commitment to long-term sustainability… I think we have to admit that something is happening.

Sukhdev says the process of changing attitudes to sustainability in corporations (and their leaders) happens through 4 stages:

  1. Discovery – wake up to the reality that Nature is not “free” but a responsibility of all
  2. Measurement/Quantification – include the costs that have been excluded as commons so we can avoid the tragedy of the commons
  3. Management/Disclosure - share the cost of using the commons and how much investment is required to replenish and restore it
  4. Adoption/Influence/Action – develop strategies, impact spheres of influence and take action that is aligned with sustainable practice

It is timely to observe, how these stages lead to activating the three principles for honouring the ecosphere of our cities and eco-regions, set out in Integral City: Meshworking Evolutionary Intelligences for the Human Hive:

1. Honor the climate and geography of your city.

2. Steward the environment.

3. Add value to the earth space.

I think the F100 commitment to green change has created the first trickles of a multi-sector groundswell. My optimism is encouraged!! Happy Earth Day 2012!!

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This blog is a preview of a webinar eLaboratory Integral City 2.0: Designing Operating Systems for Prosperity in the Human Hive, scheduled for September 2012. You are invited to contribute your brilliance as expert, design leader, practitioner, participant. Contact us at elab@integralcity.com

Posted in Building - Structures, D. Strategic Intelligences, Navigating - IVSM | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | 2 Comments »

Designing Ecosphere Economies for Planet of Cities

April 17, 2012 by Marilyn Hamilton

Integral Cities in different locations must adapt differing solutions to the same infrastructure problems.  We need to evolve our internal environments and design our external environments in ways that honour the ecosphere that we are inextricably a part of . Only by doing so can both individual and collective human life optimize the amazing diversity our DNA has gifted us with and the deep resilience of the natural ecology Gaia supports us with.

Each city location provides a unique combination of matter, energy and information as the resources of its eco-region. This means over time, humans must discover, develop and design appropriate technological solutions for city metabolism that align with each distinctive environment.

Designing from local resources enables cities to innovate from natural capital and build both diversity and resilience into its food and energy security systems.  This is the principle that Lester Brown has used in developing the designs for Plan B through the Earth Policy Institute, planning sustainable futures with a roadmap of how to get from here to there.  Brown says that, “Plan B is a plan to replace the fossil-fuel-based, automobile-centered, throwaway economy with a new economic model. Instead of being based on fossil fuels, a Plan B economy will be powered by abundant sources of renewable energy: wind, solar, geothermal, hydropower, and biofuels.”

Likewise Graeme Taylor has examined Evolution’s Edge, identifying the core stresses and threats that our planet of cities imposes on the ecosphere. Graeme and his colleagues base designs for Best Futures on the principles embedded in natural design. Taylor observes, “positive outcomes are … possible. Sustainable values, theories, technologies and social organizations are emerging. These are networking together and beginning to develop post-industrial societal structures and economic processes. Humanity has the potential to transform the existing unsustainable system into a sustainable system.”

Integral City designers naturally honour the ecosphere,  enabling sustainability for the Human Hive and resilience for human systems as “reflective organs” in their eco-regions and the full ecology of planet Earth.  Design based on ecosphere intelligence is fundamental to creating the “motherboard” of an integral operating systems for the Human Hive.

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This blog is a preview of a webinar eLaboratory Integral City 2.0: Designing Operating Systems for Prosperity in the Human Hive, scheduled for September 2012. You are invited to contribute your brilliance as expert, design leader, practitioner, participant. Contact us at elab@integralcity.com

Posted in Ecosphere, H. Research | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | 1 Comment »

Ecosphere Intel Vital to Planet of Cities

April 12, 2012 by Marilyn Hamilton

Ecosphere intelligence is an awareness and capacity to respond to the realities of a city’s climate and eco-region environment. Just as honey bees adapt themselves to different geographies, Integral Cities in different locations must adapt different solutions to the same infrastructure problems.

Ecosphere intelligence is fundamental to our energy security, food security and water security. If we approached Earth from outer space looking for ideal locations for cities we would need to take into consideration how different are the ways that cities of the seaside, cities of the mountains and cities of the plains could invent infrastructure to supply these basic needs.

Each geography on earth has ecosystems that are constrained by nine planetary boundaries that contribute to our sustainability: climate change, ozone depletion, atmospheric aerosol, ocean acidity, freshwater consumption, chemical pollution, biodiversity, nitrogen flow and phosphorus flow . Johan Rockstrom and his colleagues have examined how these interdependent boundaries are now in a state of unbalanced tension.

Rees and Wackernagel have long ago proposed that our eco-footprint must be respected if our cities are to be sustainable. The eco-footprint honours the planetary reality of our metabolic resource flows and the limitations that both local boundaries and global realities impose.

An Integral City lives sustainably not just from resources taken from the environment, but because appropriate resources are intentionally returned to the environment. Thus a self-supporting seasonal feedback loop should operate.

Developing ecosphere intelligence starts with a wake-up call for cities to measure their resource consumption and equivalent land displacements to realize the extent to which they borrow natural capital from both surrounding and distant geo-bio regions, which depletes the planetary natural capital account.  A planet of cities is called to develop a strategy to recycle our natural capital (or even improve it).

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This blog is a preview of a webinar eLaboratory Integral City 2.0: Designing Operating Systems for Prosperity in the Human Hive, scheduled for September 2012. You are invited to contribute your brilliance as expert, design leader, practitioner, participant. Contact us at elab@integralcity.com

Posted in Ecosphere | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | 1 Comment »

Update on Lessons from Cuba & Peak Oil

April 5, 2012 by Marilyn Hamilton

Two years ago this blog suggested that Cuba offered a great case study for Cities Under Peak Oil conditions.

Subsequent to that blog Jim Garrison interviewed me for Integral Life about my book Integral City.  We talked about The New Cuban Revolution: how the fairly surprising case study of Havana, Cuba offered insights to the sustainability discussion. After the fall of the iron curtain, Cuba was forced by a variety of geo-political realities to change their approach to energy policy, transportation, food production, education, and much else about their whole island eco-region.

This Cuban-focused part of the interview did not stand me in much good stead with opportunities to speak to American city associations about my views of the relationship of cities and their eco-regions.  Of course, given the history of the USA and Cuba this was a hard lesson, but not too surprising in retrospect.

So it is with genuine delight that I read in Slate today that they are now revisiting the lessons from Cuba and its experience with agro-ecology. Not only that but the author recognizes the importance that mindset plays in making decisions that change governance, relationship to the land and the wellbeing of people.  The Slate article finishes with this caution:

Climate change has already reduced global wheat harvests by 5 percent, and food prices are predicted to double by 2030. Cuba’s example is both instructive and frustrating. Technical innovations in Cuban agriculture point to the kinds of thinking needed to address the future: moving away from monoculture and understanding the value of complex, integrated systems. The trouble is that this also means a change in the mindset of governments and scientists schooled in last century’s agriculture. If that’s a lesson the rest of the world is ready for, Cuban peasant organizing could well light the way to the future, even if their automobiles are stuck in the past.

You can read the whole article with a click here.

Posted in Building - Structures, C. Collective Intelligences, E. Evolutionary Intelligences, Ecosphere, Emergence, Navigating - IVSM | Tagged , , , , , , | Leave a Comment »

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