In buildings, too, all living structure grows naturally from structure-preserving transformations
At each step forward the next step in an evolving building or in an evolving design, the system should (to preserve and generate a living character) do as much as possible to maintain the structure of the wholeness where it occurs, intact, and introduces the minimum new structure which is absolutely necessary, nothing more. The wholeness, then, can be preserved, enhanced, extended, and intensified. It is occasionally pruned and trimmed; and only very rarely destroyed altogether.
During the part century we have been used to understanding value as a subjective, culturally influenced phenomenon which depends on private individual judgement. However, within the framework of wholeness, we may begin to conceive of value as an objective phenomenon which arises inevitably from the existence of the wholeness as a structure. Distinctions of value — the distinction between one thing which is more valuable, and another which is less valuable — come directly from the wholeness, and from the degree to which unfolding has been “truthful” — by that I mean, guided by the fifteen transformations I have identified as structure-preserving, and by combinations of these fifteen transformations.
This is a startling and new conception of ethics and aesthetics. It describes good structure as a structure which has unfolded “well”, through these transformations, without violating the structure that exists. The structure we know as living structure, is just that kind of structure which has unfolded smoothly and naturally, arising step by step from what exists, preserving the structure of what exists, and allowing the “new” to grow in the most natural way as a development from the structure of “what is”.
This startling view provides us with a view of ethics and aesthetics that dignifies our respect for what exists, and treasures that which grows from this respect. It views with disfavor only that which emerges arbitrarily, without respect for what exists, and provides a vision of the world as a horn of shimmering plenty in which the “new” grows unceasingly from the structure that exists around us already. That this horn of plenty is inexhaustible, and that we may conceive an everlasting fountain of novelty without ever having to beat ourselves over the head for the sake of novelty per se — that may perhaps be one of the greatest potential legacies of this new view of the world.
#book/The Nature of Order/2 The process of creating life/2 Structure-preserving transformations#