| Integral Theory and the Origins of Integral Building |
Background
Back in the ‘70s, I looked at A Pattern Language by Christopher Alexander et Al and knew
these ideas were important. Later I became a structural engineer and came to appreciate
the huge body of knowledge accumulated in building science. Then green building
became popular bringing sustainability into consideration. All important, and all limited.
You could spend your whole life in one of these areas without really connecting with the
others.
Along the way I read Ken Wilber’s A Brief History of Everything. I enjoyed his insights
and ideas without applying it to my own life.
I had the opportunity to work with Christopher Alexander on a design for a bridge
competition. It was a great experience but it did seem that there were two different worlds
meeting. Chris did include the engineering design but very much on his own terms.
I later began practicing as a structural engineer working for myself, doing building
design, mostly for residential and open to the use of green and natural building materials.
In 2009, I was teaching a course on the Soul of Building together with Demetrius
Gonzalez, architect. It was our take on Christopher Alexander’s work, The Nature of
Order, which presented the idea of life as the essential quality of a place and showed how
to intensify it. There is a lot more in this huge four volume work, but this was what we
were concentrating on.
The penny drops
I was looking again at the work of Ken Wilber and how he applied the integral view and
Integral Theory to art. I was trying to fit this in as an example of a view of architecture
that supported giving value and meaning to the soul of building, when I realized that it
was the other way round. The soul of building fit into an integral view of Building as one
realm or view. And that building science and sustainability also fit in as the exterior or
objective realms. Let me explain this terminology.
The quadrants of Integral Theory
A key idea in Integral Theory is to honor the truth in all viewpoints. A way to be
comprehensive in discovering and evaluating different views is to start with the most basic
distinctions. Everything has an inside and an outside. And in this world, there is not only
the one thing but many things, so we can also distinguish between singular and plural.
Pairing these two distinctions gives 4 possibilities, interior/singular, interior/plural,
exterior/singular, and exterior/plural. There are other terms that can be used. I find it
clearer to use objective for exterior and global for plural. Arranging the paired terms in a
square pattern, as in the figure below, gives rise to the term quadrants. The terms left hand
are also used for the interior views and right hand for the exterior or objective views.
Left Hand Right Hand
While in the exterior or objective realms, things have a simple location in space. We can,
at least theoretically, make measurements and perform physical experiments to determine
the objective truth.
But in the interior realms we have to ask the person what their experience is. There may
be objective correlates ( a change in their pulse rate and blood pressure under stress) but to
know what is happening inside a person we have to talk with them. Similarly the shared
meaning held by a community is found by talking with them.
So Integral Theory honors both evidence and experience.
Four views of the same phenomena.
Now, it is important to be clear that these are four views of the same phenomena.
As an example we could look at a particular building. A person’s home. Objectively, the
building could be described and evaluated in terms of its materials, the energy it uses, how
it responds to different loadings, the air quality etc. Globally it has a carbon footprint in its
construction and in its operations. It adds to the statistics for the numbers of homes built
and owned, etc. For the person, each room in the home may evoke different feelings and
memories. For the family and friends, this is the person’s home with all the shared
meaning given to the term. If it is well cared for or run down and shabby it has an effect
on the shared feeling of the community. The same thing looked at from four important
but very different viewpoints.
Another key idea in Integral Theory is that people and things evolve or devolve, develop or
disintegrate. And that they do so in each of the four realms. This sometimes referred to as
a change in Level.
The AQAL Model
Together these ideas allow one to generate an AQAL (All quadrants, all levels) model of a
sphere of human activity.
This is a condensed summary of some of the concepts in the life work of an influential
modern philosopher. I hope it is enough to encourage you to learn more and in any case
enough to clarify the background for integral building.
Back in the ‘70s, I looked at A Pattern Language by Christopher Alexander et Al and knew
these ideas were important. Later I became a structural engineer and came to appreciate
the huge body of knowledge accumulated in building science. Then green building
became popular bringing sustainability into consideration. All important, and all limited.
You could spend your whole life in one of these areas without really connecting with the
others.
Along the way I read Ken Wilber’s A Brief History of Everything. I enjoyed his insights
and ideas without applying it to my own life.
I had the opportunity to work with Christopher Alexander on a design for a bridge
competition. It was a great experience but it did seem that there were two different worlds
meeting. Chris did include the engineering design but very much on his own terms.
I later began practicing as a structural engineer working for myself, doing building
design, mostly for residential and open to the use of green and natural building materials.
In 2009, I was teaching a course on the Soul of Building together with Demetrius
Gonzalez, architect. It was our take on Christopher Alexander’s work, The Nature of
Order, which presented the idea of life as the essential quality of a place and showed how
to intensify it. There is a lot more in this huge four volume work, but this was what we
were concentrating on.
The penny drops
I was looking again at the work of Ken Wilber and how he applied the integral view and
Integral Theory to art. I was trying to fit this in as an example of a view of architecture
that supported giving value and meaning to the soul of building, when I realized that it
was the other way round. The soul of building fit into an integral view of Building as one
realm or view. And that building science and sustainability also fit in as the exterior or
objective realms. Let me explain this terminology.
The quadrants of Integral Theory
A key idea in Integral Theory is to honor the truth in all viewpoints. A way to be
comprehensive in discovering and evaluating different views is to start with the most basic
distinctions. Everything has an inside and an outside. And in this world, there is not only
the one thing but many things, so we can also distinguish between singular and plural.
Pairing these two distinctions gives 4 possibilities, interior/singular, interior/plural,
exterior/singular, and exterior/plural. There are other terms that can be used. I find it
clearer to use objective for exterior and global for plural. Arranging the paired terms in a
square pattern, as in the figure below, gives rise to the term quadrants. The terms left hand
are also used for the interior views and right hand for the exterior or objective views.
Left Hand Right Hand
While in the exterior or objective realms, things have a simple location in space. We can,
at least theoretically, make measurements and perform physical experiments to determine
the objective truth.
But in the interior realms we have to ask the person what their experience is. There may
be objective correlates ( a change in their pulse rate and blood pressure under stress) but to
know what is happening inside a person we have to talk with them. Similarly the shared
meaning held by a community is found by talking with them.
So Integral Theory honors both evidence and experience.
Four views of the same phenomena.
Now, it is important to be clear that these are four views of the same phenomena.
As an example we could look at a particular building. A person’s home. Objectively, the
building could be described and evaluated in terms of its materials, the energy it uses, how
it responds to different loadings, the air quality etc. Globally it has a carbon footprint in its
construction and in its operations. It adds to the statistics for the numbers of homes built
and owned, etc. For the person, each room in the home may evoke different feelings and
memories. For the family and friends, this is the person’s home with all the shared
meaning given to the term. If it is well cared for or run down and shabby it has an effect
on the shared feeling of the community. The same thing looked at from four important
but very different viewpoints.
Another key idea in Integral Theory is that people and things evolve or devolve, develop or
disintegrate. And that they do so in each of the four realms. This sometimes referred to as
a change in Level.
The AQAL Model
Together these ideas allow one to generate an AQAL (All quadrants, all levels) model of a
sphere of human activity.
This is a condensed summary of some of the concepts in the life work of an influential
modern philosopher. I hope it is enough to encourage you to learn more and in any case
enough to clarify the background for integral building.
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