I.

Intro Story
(Begin with woman and car trouble)

I learned the hard way during my time living in Zambia that its all too often easy for Westerners to see
and solve the problems of Africa when in reality the problems are complex systems and are never as
simple to diagnose as they might seem on the surface. We may be treating small symptoms in isolation
when there may be a major malfunction. And the danger is that simplistic solutions can often cause
more harm than good.

(show African fisherman)

In 2015, the NY Times ran a story about one of these issues. The World Health Organization was busy
distributing mosquito nets in various countries in Africa including Western Zambia where I lived and
worked. This seemed like a really great idea because mosquito nets are the first line of defense against
malaria which kills at least a half a million Africans annually.

But because hunger is as much a threat as malaria in this area, many Zambian fathers choose to use
their mosquito nets for fishing instead.

(show boy with bowl of small fish)

What makes matters worse is that the nets are treated with permethrin, which the EPA says is likely to
be carcinogenic to humans when consumed orally and highly toxic to fish. The tragic irony is that they
are progressively destroying the very food source they rely on to live. The fish population is dwindling
for two reasons.

1. The holes in the nets are so small that the net is able to capture much smaller fish that it
otherwise would so the smaller fish have no chance to grow and repopulate.
2. The chemicals that coat the nets are killing the fish, or at the very least being ingested by the
fish which are then ingested by humans.

So its a very tricky issue isnt it? With no immediate and clear solution. The threat of death by hunger is
just as real as death by malaria.

What does this have to do with our topic today? Complex challenges of water scarcity, climate change,
urban population growth and food production, are all staring us in the face. Our current housing
industry is part of that complexity. Which is why its so important to use whole systems thinking and
visual clarity to navigate our way through complexity, explain it clearly to others, and make use of
strategies for radically innovative solutions.

II. Intro myself, thesis work, and topic

(show pic of Gregory rendering, Zambia work, and MCAD)
Before we get into our material let me tell you a little bit myself.

For most of my career I have been an exhibit and brand environments designer. I think I first became
aware of Bio-inspired design as I studied architectural engineer, Santiago Calatrava, during one of my
projects. His work may be more biomorphic or bionic, yet I could still see that he was highly influenced
by the functions of natural systems.

Later when I was in Zambia teaching, I came across an organization called Foundations for Farming that
was basic permaculture farming methods to rural farmers. Now Im not a farmer but I couldnt help see
the wisdom in seeing and emulating what we find in nature and applying it farming. And it completely
changed my perspective. After returning to the states, I discovered Janine Benyuss book on Biomimicry
and began reading everything I could on the Biomimicry 3.8 and AskNature websites. That led me to
pursue a MA in Sustainable Design at Minneapolis College of Art and Design and it was the perfect fit for
my context.

(show pic of me and T41G / MHL logos)

I currently still work in the exhibit industry from my home as lead designer for a small company in
Orlando, FL. But I am also busy building my own design consultancy, Mud Hut Lab, with the goal of
advancing sustainable practice within the combined industries of exhibit design and tourism.

(show pic of thesis project The Integrated Living Home)

My graduate thesis focused on the exploration and design of an education and marketing exhibit. The
intent for the exhibit was to showcase the Integrated Living Home a dwelling place where all sub-
systems work together in one interdependent relationship to create a thriving environment that
produces more than it consumes. The intent was for the exhibit to explain the Integrated Living Home in
such a way that target users become convinced that this kind of home should be the new standard for
the housing industry in the Midwest.

During the design process I made use of visual clarity, whole systems thinking, and lifes principles to
identify the sub-systems within the integrated living home, to understand how those sub-systems
interacted with and related to each other, and to evaluate several solutions that shared many of these
sub-systems.

So today, using my thesis as case study, were going to talk about the value of visual clarity, whole
systems thinking and the lifes principles framework as important keys that unlock innovation.

III. Thesis as case study

(show Dan Roam quote)

I used visual clarity strategies and whole systems thinking twice:

 1. first to see
2. and then to show.

Its my opinion that well get the most benefit out of these strategies if we will use them in the same
two-step approach:

1. First see and understand the system for yourself

2. Then use the same strategies to help explain the system clearly to others

Step 1 Visual Clarity

(show 9 urgent needs)

I knew that somehow I would need to identify and chunk (or group together) all of the various sub-
systems of an Integrated Living Home. Because of my off-the-grid experience living in Africa, I
approached the sub-systems in order of urgency: shelter, water, food, heating / cooking, cooling &
refrigeration, waste management, energy, health, connectivity & automation.

Now there may be some overlap between sub-systems (for example, passive solar design which
technically fits under shelter, heating and cooling).

The goal is not perfection, but rather to organize the system that youre studying.

(show 9 circles)

I chose nine chunks because it was aesthetically pleasing (3 rows of 3) and the familiar pattern helped
as a memory tool.

(show Russian nesting dolls)

Next, I applied a layering strategy by nesting the various options and components within each sub-
system so that the information was less cluttered and easier for my mind process.

(show icons)

Lastly, I used iconic representation to assign an appropriate symbol and color to each chunk. This
helped with recognition and recall when studying a large and complex system diagram.

Step 2 Whole System Diagram

(show isolated egg)

So while visual clarity helps organize our thoughts, Whole systems thinking, on the other hand, gives us
the macro view, the big picture of any system and keeps us from designing in isolation, which could lead
to causing more harm than good remember mosquito nets used for fishing?
(show quote by Donella Meadows)

Everything is connected and its often difficult to determine where to draw the boundary around what it
is we want to study. As Donella Meadows says, Where we draw our boundary really depends on the
purpose of our discussion. Its also worth noting that one model isnt sufficient to tell us everything
about a whole system. But its a start.

(Single shelter system boundary slide)

We start with this close-up view of a single sub-system, (in this case shelter). Here you can see more
details of all the components inside and how they relate to other sub-systems.

(System boundary with three sub-systems shown)

Next, you see the whole house represented as a system boundary but with only three sub-systems
highlighted: shelter, cooling / refrigeration, and heating / cooking.

(System boundary with all nine sub-systems shown)

Finally you can see the same whole house system boundary but with all nine sub-systems highlighted.
This kind of diagram gets very complex (and messy!) and Im probably showing half of the flows or
relationships between them.

But it as messy as it is, it helps doesnt it? To begin to think through how one sub-system interacts with
and affects the others?

So a whole systems diagram helps to understand the system better, which means that we:

See the system boundary

See whats inside the boundary all the pieces and parts that make up the system
See how they relate and interact with one another
See what is outside the boundary the larger super-system of which the one were studying is a
part
See stocks (or reservoirs) of fluid, energy, heat, etc. inside the boundary
See the flows going into those stocks (both from inside and outside the boundary)
See the flows coming out of those stocks (both from indie and outside the boundary)

Step 3 Comparison Chart

(show comparison chart)

The following comparison chart features eight examples that I chose out of my initial research. They
either demonstrate:
 The Integrated Living Home ideal (like Grow Community on Bainbridge Island, WA or zHome
which is one of the Living Building Challenge case studies you can see both at the top of the
page)

(show second page)

Or advanced innovation in a particular sub-system or group of sub-systems (like the AMIE

project by Oak Ridge National Laboratories or the Melissa project by ESA)

I could easily have included eight or more others. But the purpose was to:

Survey what was out there in the area of living systems and integrated architecture.
Look for gaps in sub-systems that could be improved or developed more fully.
Begin to stimulate ideas early on.

I developed a subjective rating system of 1 to 5 with a 1 indicating very little treatment or attention to
the sub-system and 5 indicating a very high level of innovation to the sub-system. You could set it up for
a more quantitative comparison.

(show Authentic Ecolodge book)

You can see a much more comprehensive example in the book Authentic Ecolodges by architect, Hitesh
Mehta, who did an excellent job of surveying and rating 36 different ecolodges.

(show Comparison Survey w/ Honda Smart Home circled)

I chose one design from the comparison chart (The Honda Smart Home of the Future you can see it
rated roughly in the middle) and evaluated it against lifes principles.

Step 4 Lifes Principles

(show main LP page)

Lifes Principles is a whole-systems thinking framework developed by the Biomimicry Guild, to assess
the viability (or we might say thrive-ability) of products, services and processes.

It does this by identifying strategies that living things use in order to survive in balance with their
surroundings; strategies that are fundamental to the persistence of life on this planet.

You can see there are two main divisions within lifes principles:

1. Life adapts evolves (the blue wing on the left)

2. Life creates conditions conducive to life (the tan wing on the right)
(show blue wing)

Within each of the two main divisions there are categories. So we can identify how life adapts and
evolves it does this by:

Being locally attuned and responsive

Integrating cyclic processes
Being resilient

(show tan wing)

We can also identify how life creates conditions conducive to life it does this by:

Optimizing rather than maximizing

Leveraging interdependence
By using benign manufacturing

Isnt it interesting that just by looking at natures strategies in these six categories were already
addressing criteria in the Living Building Challenge?

Optimizing rather than maximizing already speaks to designing houses that are human-scaled and not-
too-big. Leveraging Interdependence already speaks to community outreach and integration in the
Equity and Beauty petals of LBC. And benign manufacturing already addresses the LBCs Red list of
materials.

Lifes Principles continues on into even smaller sub-categories.

(show LP Report Card)

You can see that when I created the Lifes Principles Report Card, I arranged those sub-categories in a
way that made sense to me.

(show LP report card green check mark)

Green Marks Accounted For

During my research, when I saw an obvious example of how the home fulfilled one of lifes principles
then I gave it a green check mark. (For instance, within the Resourceful and Opportunistic category,
under free energy, I noted that the Honda Smart Home makes use of free energy from the sun and
free water from rain for irrigation).

(show LP report card brown crossed tools)

Brown Crossed Tools Needs Improvement

I used a brown crossed tool symbol for other sub-categories that needed improvement where there
was either no example at all (like using water-based chemistry under the category Using Benign
Manufacturing bottom right) or there was opportunity for improvement (like locally attuned and
responsive to local climate under Locally Attuned and Responsive top of the page).

Brainstorming about how to suggest improvements for all the sub-categories was fun. Let me show you
some examples:

Example 1 For locally attuned and responsive to local climates I suggested that Passive House super
insulation strategies be considered. I explored others as well, possibly earth-sheltered designs,
depending of course on context.

Then for simple, common building blocks, under Resourceful & Opportunistic I suggested SIPs and
ICFs. Transmaterialization, like additive manufacturing on site using a portable 3D printer, might also fit
into this category.

Example 2 For cross-pollination and diversity (under Integrates Cyclical Process), I mentioned
two strategies:

Exaptation which is taking something that was used for one purpose and re-tooling it or
applying for another (like using containers from the shipping industry or grain bins from farming
and re-designing them for human habitation).
Biomimicry which Denise already covered.

Example 3 Several ideas came to mind as I looked at how life is decentralized, distributed, and
redundant. All of this fits under the category of Resilience.

Global economist Dombisa Moyo, reported that the American Society of Civil Engineers gave the US a
pathetic overall grade of D+ for its failing infrastructure. The report also said that a $3.6 trillion
investment (roughly one-fifth of the nations annual GDP) will be needed by 2020 to boost the quality of
US infrastructure.

So this is a very important area as we face the effects of climate change ahead. The improvements I
explored were mainly in the areas of food preservation and gray-water reclamation. Again, many other
suggestions could be made here.

Example 4 In nature we see that waste just becomes nutrients for something new. I wanted to
explore more radical concepts for recycling rather than just the usual. Ecovative is one example of
incredible innovation and offers the possibility of a new fully compostable, mycelium-based SIP panel.
This type of grown material also fits the bill for self-assembly and using life-friendly materials (within
Benign Manufacturing).
IV. Review
So in review we can:

1. Apply visual clarity strategies to help us identify the various parts of a system.
2. Build a system diagram and study how each sub-system interacts with the others.
3. Find other models that are similar to the system we found so that we can make comparisons.
4. Lay our system down next to the lifes principles checklist and evaluate it.

This then becomes a springboard for creativity as we brainstorm all sorts of solutions. This leads us into
using other idea-generating tools like the Biomimetic Design Spiral.

V. Whats the End Goal?

(show Columbia River Gorge)

Often in the world of sustainability we get stuck repeating a flawed mantra that drones on and on,
Reduce, cut back, learn to live with less. But thats not what you see in nature. Nature balances
opposing forces. Its not austere minimalism or wasteful consumption. Instead, there is bounty, life
flourishes, and nothing is wasted.

The building industry, on the other hand, is out of balance. And radically bucking the norm is going to be
required to catalyze movement in the right direction toward balance. The pressure on designers,
architects and engineers is enormous. We all have an obligation to design buildings and infrastructure in
ways that make the world better for every living thing. Disruptive innovation is the strategy and balance
is the goal.

(show kid with LEGOs)

Innovation begins by dumping lots of possible solutions on the table. A population of ideas and
approaches sparks other tangential ideas and approaches which in turn spark others. When piles of
them are passed back and forth between groups, added to and refined, then a fitting synthesis is
reached.

(show adjacent possible)

Steven Johnson talks a lot about this process in his book Where Good Ideas Come From. One of the
things he describes is the adjacent possible, which is a concept of a thing that currently lies just out of
reach a kind of shadow future, hovering on the edges of the present state of things.

Imagine were in a room with four doors, each leading to a new room we havent visited yet. Those four
rooms are the adjacent possible. But once you open one of those doors and stroll into that room, three
new doors appear, each leading to a brand new room that you couldnt have reached from your original
starting point.
(Steven Johnson quote)

Steven Johnson gives us one last thought a word or encouragement and hope for our design
endeavors. He says, The strange and beautiful truth about the adjacent possible is that its boundaries
grow as you explore them. Like a good pair of hiking boots, Lifes Principles and the Biomimetic design
spiral will help us explore those boundaries.

Thank you.