Unfolding with Context

Source

Unfolding is a design process coined by Christopher Alexander.

Instead of imposing a predetermined vision, you let the right form emerge naturally from your context.

I paid attention to things I liked to do, and found ways to do more of that. I made it easy for interesting people to find me, and then I hung out with them. We did projects together.

I kept iterating—paying attention to the context, removing things that frustrated me, and expanding things that made me feel alive.

Eventually, I looked up and noticed that my life was nothing like I imagined it would be. But it fit me.

If you want to find a good design—be that the design of a house or an essay, a career or a marriage—what you want is some process that allows you to extract information from the context, and bake it into the form. That is what unfolding is.

It is a feedback loop between you and the context. By gradually adjusting the thing you are designing and observing how well it fits the context, you create a feedback loop that embeds the context’s knowledge into your design. Your design ends up smarter than you.

Key Principles

flowchart LR
    A[Scan]
    A --> B[Theorize]
    B --> C[Act]
    C --> D[Learn]
    D --> E[Adjust]
    E --> F[Repeat]

• The context is smarter than you - it holds more nuance than you can consciously process.
• Start small and iterate rather than making big leaps.
• Pay attention to what makes you feel alive and do more of that.
• Make it easy for interesting people to find you and collaborate with them.

Tips on Increasing Information from Context

• Talk to practitioners. Speak to people already doing that work.
• Run small scale experiments.
• Unbundle abstractions.
• Overcome social fears. Don’t worry about looking stupid.
• Keep all possibilities on the table.

See also: taste The Garden and the Stream.md