Conclusion

What is the generator problem in computer science?

Once the problem of creating, using, and working out generative sequences for a wide variety of architectural and environmental problems has been solved and worked out practically, the mental landscape of architecture will change, since lay people will be able to lay out, for themselves, houses, gardens, neighborhoods, streets, shops, factories, office buildings, and public buildings. At that stage, the promise of a world in which living structure appears all over the face of the earth, governed by generative sequences, can become a reality.

But there is a further complication. At each stage in a living process, the needed sequence for the steps that are to follow comes from the wholeness which has unfolded up until that time. It is the wholeness itself, coupled with the fundamental differentiating process, coupled with the use of structure-preserving transformations, which tells us exactly what the proper sequence is for the next steps. This is the crucial point of contact between the idea of the wholeness, and the idea of the sequence.
The single most important thing that happens during the process of making anything, is the ever watchful task of getting the next bit of sequence right and modifying it as we go along. Paying attention to what has to be done next, and getting this right, is as important as what one actually does.
The more one understands the idea of unfolding, and the more one understands the key role which sequence plays in the unfolding process, the more it becomes clear that the process of design and the process of construction are inseparable.

The end result is not relaxed but contrived, highly precise according to some previously created image. This thing does not unfold. It is made to conform to a rigid conception.
In this comparison, we see the essential fact:
The power and relatedness that come from a proper sequence are immense.

#book/The Nature of Order/2 The process of creating life/11 The sequence of unfolding#