Part 1

The first two chapters contain discussion of what is perhaps the most important human issue in the built environment: our sense of ownership, participation, and belonging to the world.

Chapter 1, Belonging and not-belonging, suggests that our belonging to the world works in two ways: the belonging that we feel in public places and the belonging which we feel in individual, private, places. In a world where living processes are working properly, each individual private place (whether private house, apartment, office, workplace, or workshop) will have its own uniqueness that allows its users to belong to it. At the same time, to work well each of these private places are directly attached to some hull of public space, thus giving us — people — participation in the social world at large.

Chapter 2, Our belonging to the world, describes with small examples, and with more intensity, just what I mean by belonging. This belonging — the relation through which we human beings are connected to the Earth — a visceral feeling of joy — hinges on the sensation that we have the right to be here, that we belong to the world and it belong to us.

Only living process can generate belonging. When living processes are working well, our belonging comes about naturally. Then, both in public and in private, our belonging to the Earth is established without effort.

#book/The Nature of Order/3 A Vision of a Living World#