Enabling Social Systems

Enabling Social Systems:  Lessons from the Past

Mauro Reyes

The shape of the English streets and roads has been a subject of great curiosity since the first moment I got to know this country personally. Not only do they evoke in me such feelings of beauty and harmony, but also since every time I contemplate them, they call to my mind a bundle of questions such as: What has determined the pattern of their shapes? Did the first people that shaped them have any intention to pursue symmetry or beauty? Why did they come to be like this? Did they adjust to the conditions of the landscape for animals? Was it a spontaneous consequence of the distribution of English villages?

In trying to give answer to these questions I also realized how related this theme is with the fact of enabling social systems where you need to account for beauty, ethics and sustainability; challenging aspects for any social designer today. Here then is my journey towards the understanding of those forms and the extracted learning for pursuing successful social systems today.

English Streets and Roads: A contemplative description

Most streets and roads in England present curves and are not straight, creating in most cases, a sensation of a snake like movement. They seem to adapt to the farms around, the lie of the hills, streams and rivers. These forms are also presented in the pathways, towns, cities and villages; and even in the wood fences, platforms and painted lines on the roads. In the particular case of the countryside most of the ways go along the natural fences with vegetation.

One of the most visible features is that once you reach a deviation of any of these roads you can find another road with the same form, if you go along the road you have found and go until the next deviation, again you find another with the same characteristic. Although the size varies, specially because in some cases as long as you get the deviation you find bigger or smaller roads. This suggests a kind of pattern where the angle of the deviation seems to be not more than 45 degrees. In consequence is very common that at the end of the streets in the English villages, towns or cities it is not possible to see the end of the street but to see a deviation and buildings, something that hardly happens in Paris or American cities. Additionally in several cases once you have reached the turning point, it also changes the slope of the terrain, for example you might go in a downward direction and when you have to do the deviation you also start an upward direction. In fact, some of the roundabouts are the convergence point of some lie of the hills.

In the case of the country side roads, some of these have been built in the middle of the vegetation leaving no space for pedestrians and creating a sort of tunnel effect. Likewise the houses found on the roads do not disrupt these forms following the shape of the vegetation and roads.

Fig. 1: A representative curved road from the English countryside. Dartington, Devon, UK.

Discovering the purpose and significance of the forms

Studying the purpose and significance where the forms described are embedded, provides valuable insights and lessons about the origin of these forms and the central question of designing for sustainability.

The English landscape as we know it today is almost entirely the product of the last fifteen hundred years, beginning with the earliest Anglo-Saxon villages in the middle decades of the fifth century. The Anglo-Saxon settlement was spread over some twenty generations between about 450 and 1066. During this time England became a land of villages. (Hoskins, 1955; p. 45)

In the following there is a brief description of how aspects from that period onwards, such as assessing specific needs, the dynamics of the economy, the agricultural system and more recently the enclosure of the commons give meaning to the forms, and provide lessons for enabling successful social systems today.

Specific Needs

One of the key aspects in designing systems is related with ethics. This is a complicated issue bearing in mind that implies two aspects:  To determine the right conduct and good life, and the discovery of what is called the summum bonum or the greatest good. To tackle this difficulty, I believe that what is ethical, is what most people believe is right for them even if they fail in their decisions. For example, pursuing “sustainability” is something that can be easily called ethical since accounts aspects such as fair trade, or linking the consumer and producer directly. In this sense it is important for social systems designers to develop the ability to identify, not only, those “ethical” signals but also how society organises itself to carry on with them.

As a matter of fact some scholars are now interested about what they call “social innovation”, a term that refers to a change in the way individuals and communities act to achieve socially desired outcomes – solving problems or exploiting new opportunities –. They have also added that generally this is the result of “bottom up” behavioural transformations and changes in technology and the market (Manzini 1, 2008).

In the case of the study of the typology of shapes of the villages it is behaviours and ways of organization to accomplish determined outcomes that are recognisable. Among the types of villages found in England, one can find, for example, the village grouped around a central green or square, as it is the case of Finchingfield (Essex) or Easington (Durham)  and are thus called “green-villages”. These kind of villages had a common area used for the sake of the community in a cooperative basis. This area was part of the whole settlement, for example a common grass land at the centre of a small agricultural settlement, used for grazing and sometimes for community events. Some may also have a pond, originally for watering stock (Wikipedia, 2008).

Even in our present times we demand this kind of system that could be called sustainable or ethical, or simply would not give any distinction. The fact is that these spaces promoted social values and a context suitable for the economic activities of the villages. In the “green villages”, the green is traditionally at a central location and provides an open-air meeting place for the people of a village, for example at times of celebration, or for public ceremonies. It seems also likely that the green-villages represent enclosures for defensive purposes.

As for those villages that are neither grouped around a central space nor along the street, where the houses are dotted about singly or in pairs, and joined together by network of lanes and paths, it is probably; they were the result of individual squatting on the common pasture or in a clearing in thickly wooded country. Such squatters had no concerted plan and no leader with a small community around him, as in those numerous early villages the name of which embodies some Old English personal name. They acted individually and built wherever they had cleared a sufficient space, though always in close proximity to their neighbours (Hoskins, 1955; p. 63).

Fig. 2: Finchingfield (Essex), an example of the “green villages”. Source: Google Earth

Economic and Historical Moment

There is not doubt that finding a single explanation to the historical result of the English landscape is not an easy task. What we see today is the consequence of the evolution of a diverse number of elements interrelated. In fact building scenarios with some basic choices constitutes a strategy to overcome that certain degree of uncertainty. The called “scenario building processes” are then the result of those choices from the complexity of society and the contradictory signals that it emits where some tendencies and weak signals are identified and interpreted. Thus it is possible to generate a new and motivated vision of the present and of its possible evolution in order to give a reference to daily concrete actions (Manzini 2, 2008).

In the case of the most successful villages and towns, they developed in a context where the most suitable conditions were available. In addition those towns and villages weren’t necessarily planned, something that constitutes at the same time a reason of the multiple street patterns we see today. In fact England is a country of few planned towns. Whilst it possible to find planned towns like Middlesbrough and Winchelsea laid out on a gridiron pattern with straight streets crossing each other at right angles, sometimes at fixed distances apart; most English towns left to grow up in a more or less haphazard fashion, even certain parts of the planned city like Birmingham are “just a jumbled, inchoate mess” (Hoskins, 1955; p. 272).

Fig. 3: Middlesbrough, an example of a planned town

From the design point of view here is where it is worth emphasizing the role of the designers today as to identify and enhance those scenarios where ideas and solutions are being generated at a social level, instead of rigid plans or structures imposed. As a matter of fact the impulse to produce planned towns had died out by 1300. Then there is no more until the planned development of more or less large states in the late 18th century towns. Finally, in the middle decades of the 19^th century, there are once again whole new towns created not only on the gridiron pattern but also more recently the radial pattern of some housing states.

At this point the matter of form and the enabling of systems converge in what we can learn and see today: narrow, irregular, winding streets and paradigmatic little lanes found either in countryside or urbanized areas, consequence of spontaneous processes with the “right” initial conditions. Particularly the 12^th and 13^th centuries, was a time of population, trade and industry growing suitable for landowners to make money, they just had to find the convenient spot with favourable conditions: such as being near the protection of a castle or an abbey, which were considerable markets also, at some important river-crossing, and so on.

Fig 4: Drawing of Birmingham from 1886 showing the Council House, Town Hall and Chamberlain Memorial

Source: http://www.answers.com/topic/history-of-birmingham?cat=travel

In the end, enabling systems is an issue of let it go, taking advantage of the society signals, improving contexts and empowering actors at all levels of social organization. We learn from the past how clear that fact was; landlords, bishops and abbots made no attempt to lay out their new towns; they just gave charters, building materials, offered low rents, even a market fair and other inducements without worrying how the town was going to grow if they were to grow. The most important aspect was to be prepared to extend the boundaries and provide what the settlers wanted. Landowners and even the king were aware that creating a new town was absolutely reliant on people despite all of the inducements provided. It was a risky business hoping that new groups and traders and merchants directed their steps there and decided eventually to settle and build there.

Agricultural System

One of the most remarkable features of the Anglo Saxon England was its agricultural system that leads to the field shapes we see today. The unit of cultivation and the ploughing systems could be one of the most coherent explanations that gave origin to the called S-shapes. From this point it is possible to infer that the matter of symmetry and aesthetics nothing had to do with the configuration of the English landscape. Yet it is also possible to conclude that adjusting to the natural conditions it is a way of reaching harmony and beauty. The essential condition to this is the kind of technology used; one created to and from taking advantage the specific context –the system of ploughing by oxen of the middles ages is a good example of this.

In the first place the soil and the lie of the land were key factors in the configuration of the unit of cultivation, which was the strip, and a bundle or parcel of strips; all running in the same direction, made up what was known as a furlong. Normally a strip was of half an acre or even one third of an acre and was normally managed by one small family. The largest unit of the unit of cultivation was made up of scores of furlongs of varying shapes and sizes, and hence of several hundred strips (Hoskins, 1955; p. 45).

Each strip was separated by a double furrow where still today present the ridge-and-furrow pattern, term used by archaeologists to describe the pattern of peaks and troughs created in a field by the system of ploughing used during the Middle Ages (Wikipedia 2, 2008). In particular it is said that the ploughing system could have given origin to the curves of the fields due to the fact of using large teams of small oxen. Here is an extract of the explanation given by Eyre in 1948:

“When reaching the end of the furrow, the leading oxen would meet the end first, and would be turned left along the headland, while the plough continued as long as possible in the furrow. When the plough eventually reached the end, the oxen would be turned around to walk rightwards along the headland, crossing the end of the strip, and they would then start down the opposite furrow, the plough following behind. By the time the plough reached the beginning of the furrow, the oxen would be ready to pull it forwards.

The result of this was to twist the end of each furrow slightly to the left, making these earlier ridges and furrows a slight reverse-S shape”.

Fig. 5: Part of the East Field of Lower Heyford, Oxfordshire, in 1606. Some of the strips that appear in the image are still presented in England. Source (Eyre, 1948)

Enclosure and Open Fields

Finally the complicated shape of some towns is also a representation of the problems not only faced in the past but also today. In the 19^th century population was also increasing at a speedy rate and the building area was being scarce to the rise of the quantity of people. Dealing with this problem of expansion had different results to the towns with different characteristics as they are seen. For example, Nottingham failed to solve the problem until too late and created as a consequence some of the worst slum in any town in England. Leicester solved it just in time and produced a town that spilled widely across the surrounding fields and gave its working class bigger and better houses, and wider streets, than almost anywhere else in industrial England (Hoskins, 1955; p. 241).

It was not until the open fields were enclosed, their multitudinous strips were reallotted in large compact blocks of land, and the rights of common pasture over them were extinguished, that it was possible to get a single acre for building. Whilst it was happening, towns were struggling themselves where every garden, every orchard, every foot of open space within old confines, reached exorbitant prices for building, and the courts and alleys enabled more houses to be packed into a given area.

Fig 6: Nottingham slums: Parr’s Yard in 1931 Source:  www.nottinghamcity.gov.uk/libraries/

Enclosing the land meant ending with the open field system and fencing the land and entitled it to one or more private owners, who would then enjoy the possession and fruits of the land to the exclusion of all others (Wikipedia 3, 2008). Before to this process it was possible to exercise traditional rights such as the Lammas pasture rights – that is, the right of burgesses, or some of them, to graze their cattle and sheep over the open fields after the harvest had been taken in. The town fields might be well private property and held by only half a dozen farmers. However these kinds of property rights systems created a visible trade off, since without enclosure it was not possible to segment the land to allow more building spaces.

Some historians argue that the process of enclosure created a landless working class that provided the labour required in the new industries developing in the north of England (Thompson, 1991; p. 237). Others argue that the enclosure itself was not the problem but the complicated property rights to deal with the fast population growth and building space requirements (Hoskins, 1955; p. 244). Ultimately is an issue of scale that we also have to tackle today, happening with natural resources or with the called public goods. What to do with this problem? Allocating a price to the priceless? Establishing property rights and trading with them?

From the design perspective it demands another economic model. What the past has shown and still is the case today, is the de-empowerment of people of their means of production. Now factors of production such as land and technology are monopolized creating economies of scale, producing at large scale with a minimum cost. The problem here is that people are also treated as a factor of production being packed in industries to produce the most they can, while the income is centralised by few owners of the land, capital and labour.

A new model is required where every single person is valuable not for being a commodity or factor or production but for their active participation in the economic organisation of society. However since the issue of scale still remains, the design perspective suggest the new idea of “local” or the new relation between “local” and “global”. In this sense it is proposed to orient society towards the Multi-local society scenario which is a vision where everybody understands, discusses and fosters local initiatives based at the same time on the demographic, environmental, economic and technological trends.

Elements for Discussion (Conclusion)

In the following appears a brief description of some aspects derived from the Multi-local society scenario (Manzini 2, 2008) worth exploring for the current society demands, which the problems for the past show us their relevance as we see in essence the same problems in the present:

The local is not local

This means strengthening local identity but opening with other communities in an environment of high degree of interconnectivity. In this sense it is proposed non centralized systems where every community constitutes a junction of a network in a supportive basis and most important following the subsidiary principle, that is, to do on a larger scale only what cannot be done on a smaller scale.

New ideas about well being and production

The scenario of the multi-local society proposes also a new idea of production, or better, of the production and consumption systems, proposing a new relation with effectiveness and quality. One specific corollary of this view is the “slow model” which includes certain values in the relation producer-consumer. It is said that this kind of model cultivates quality: linking products and their producers to their places of production and to their end-users who, by taking part in the production chain in different ways, become themselves co-producers. In the end, what it is required here are new ideas on quality, well-being and development models.

References

Eyre, S R. The Curving Plough-strip and its Historical Implications. Agricultural History Review 3 80-94

E. P. Thompson, The Making of the English Working Class (Penguin, New Edition, 1991)

Hoskins, W. G. The Making of the English Landscape (Leicester, 1955) ISBN 0-340-77020-1

Manzini, E (1). Social Innovation: Creative communities and diffused social enterprise. (DRAFT) DIS-Indaco, Politecnico di Milano (2008)

Wikipedia (1): http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Village_green (2008).

Wikipedia (2): http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ridge_and_furrow (2008)

Wikipedia (3): http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Enclosure (2008)

Manzini, E (2). Emerging scenarios: Active well-being and distributed economies. (DRAFT) DIS-Indaco, Politecnico di Milano (2008)