Konomi Munakata, Takashi Iba, "Wholeness Egg: Designing a Living Workshop in light of Christopher Alexander’s Design Theory", PUARL 2018 conference, Portland, USA, Oct. 2018 --- This workshop introduces “Wholeness Egg” as an effective technique for designing “living” workshops. When designing a workshop, we are likely to set a specific goal, list up all the essential elements first and then simply integrate them together to make a program, to ensure that it can achieve the expected results. However, when it is designed and implemented just for pursuing the planners’ intended purpose, it is likely to fail in stimulating participants’ creative thinking and gaining “liveliness” in it. The feeling of “life” in design may sound very intuitive, and thus many people think that it is not something they can or should deal with when designing things or activities. But that is what the Austrian architect, Christopher Alexander has strengthened in his books about the beauty of buildings, “The Timeless Way of Building (1979)” and “The Nature of Order: An Essay of the Art of Building and the Nature of the Universe (2002)” after 27 years of research. He said, “All our work has to do with the creation of life and that the task, in any particular project, is to make the building (design) come to life as much as possible” (Alexander, 1979). Those two books explained what gives life, beauty and true functionality to our buildings and what must be done to create more life in our world. Taking his design theory to heart, how can we design a good workshop which is truly alive? 　This method was therefore developed based on the Christopher Alexander’s ideas of “the whole and parts” and “Fifteen Fundamental Geometrical Properties (Alexander, 2002)” described in his publications. This method is named “Wholeness Egg”, as it puts significant emphasis on the “wholeness” of a design. In particular, it aims to design the activity by grasping its wholeness first and subsequently differentiating it into parts (Fig.1), taking account of “Fifteen Fundamental Properties (Alexander, 2002)” to ensure the coherence and quality of the entire activity. In this workshop, participants can experience the technique of the Wholeness Egg in designing their own workshops, and will become able to apply this methodology in designing own creative activities.

1. Designing
a Living Workshop
In light of Christopher Alexander’s Design Theory
Konomi Munakata
Takashi Iba
PUARL Conference 2018
Wholeness Egg

2. “All our work has to do with the creation of life. In any
particular project, we have to make the design come to life
as much as possible” (Alexander 1979).
Designing a Living Workshop
In light of Christopher Alexander’s Design Theory

3. Designing a Living Workshop
In light of Christopher Alexander’s Design Theory
・wholeness
・differentiation
・15 fundamental properties
What makes a design come to life

4. “wholeness”
Designing a Living Workshop
In light of Christopher Alexander’s Design Theory
…a source of coherence which can be found in any part of the world, and it
includes what we intuitively perceive as the gestalt, the overview or the broad
nature of a thing (Alexander 2002).
Designing a Living Workshop
In light of Christopher Alexander’s Design Theory

5. “wholeness”
Designing a Living Workshop
In light of Christopher Alexander’s Design Theory
…a source of coherence which can be found in any part of the world, and it
includes what we intuitively perceive as the gestalt, the overview or the broad
nature of a thing (Alexander 2002).
Designing a Living Workshop
In light of Christopher Alexander’s Design Theory
Iba, T., Munakata, K. (2018) “Wholeness Egg: Methodology of Designing Workshops and
Presentations by Differentiating the Whole,” EuroPLoP’18

6. “differentiation”
(Alexander, 1979, p384)
Designing a Living Workshop
In light of Christopher Alexander’s Design Theory
“It is not a process of addition, in which pre-formed parts are combined to
create a whole, but the process in which every individual act of building
differentiates the space. It is a process of unfolding, like the evolution of
an embryo, in which the whole precedes its parts, and actually gives birth
to them, by splitting”

7. Designing a Living Workshop
In light of Christopher Alexander’s Design Theory
Designing a Living Workshop
In light of Christopher Alexander’s Design Theory
Iba, T., Munakata, K. (2018) “Wholeness Egg: Methodology of Designing Workshops and
Presentations by Differentiating the Whole,” EuroPLoP’18
…fifteen ways in which centers become more intense
and make life come to the wholeness (Alexander 2002).
“15 fundamental properties”

8. Designing a Living Workshop
In light of Christopher Alexander’s Design Theory
Iba T and Sakai S. 2016. Understanding Christopher Alexander’s Fifteen Properties via
Visualization and Analysis. in PURPLSOC Workshop, published as a book, Baumgartner P and
Sickinger R (eds). 2016. PURPLSOC:

9. Designing a Living Workshop
In light of Christopher Alexander’s Design Theory
・wholeness
・differentiation
・15 fundamental properties
What makes a design come to life

10. Designing a Living Workshop
In light of Christopher Alexander’s Design Theory
How can we actually come up with a living design,
based on Alexander’s ideas of wholeness,
15 properties and differentiation?

11. Designing a Living Workshop
In light of Christopher Alexander’s Design Theory
Wholeness Egg Approach

12. Designing a Living Workshop
In light of Christopher Alexander’s Design Theory
Step1: Imagine the wholeness of a design
Wholeness Egg Approach

13. Designing a Living Workshop
In light of Christopher Alexander’s Design Theory
Step2: Define the main center
Wholeness Egg Approach

14. Designing a Living Workshop
In light of Christopher Alexander’s Design Theory
Step3: Find smaller centers which support other centers and intensify the
entire design
Wholeness Egg Approach

15. Designing a Living Workshop
In light of Christopher Alexander’s Design Theory
Wholeness Egg Approach

16. Dialogue Workshop with Learning Patterns
at Shonan Fujisawa Campus/ Keio University

17. 1,000 freshmen participate in dialogue workshops with using the
Learning Patterns every year, for past 8 years (Keio University)

18. Designing a Living Workshop
In light of Christopher Alexander’s Design Theory
Wholeness Egg Approach
Step1: Imagine the wholeness of a design

19. Designing a Living Workshop
In light of Christopher Alexander’s Design Theory
Wholeness Egg Approach
Step2: Define the main center

20. Designing a Living Workshop
In light of Christopher Alexander’s Design Theory
Wholeness Egg Approach
Step3: Find smaller centers within the main center
・Alternative Repetition
・Local Symmetry
・Roughness
・Void
……

21. Designing a Living Workshop
In light of Christopher Alexander’s Design Theory
Wholeness Egg Approach
Step3: Find smaller centers around the main center
・Gradient
・Boundaries
・Contrast
……

22. Dialogue Workshop with Learning Patterns
at Shonan Fujisawa Campus/ Keio University

23. Let’s design a living workshop
for the PUARL Conference next year!
Designing a Living Workshop
In light of Christopher Alexander’s Design Theory

24. ‒Christopher Alexander
“The differentiating process allows the design to
unfold as smoothly as an opening flower”

25. How we use the Wholeness Egg in our practices
Designing a Living Workshop
In light of Christopher Alexander’s Design Theory

26. References
・Alexander, C. (1979) The Timeless Way of Building, Oxford University Press.
・Alexander, C. (2002) The Nature of Order: An Essay of the Art of Building and the
Nature of the Universe, Book 1: The Phenomenon of Life, Center for Environmental
Structure.
・Iba, T., Munakata, K. (2018) “Wholeness Egg: Methodology of Designing a
Living Workshop by Differentiating a Whole,” EuroPLoP’18