Welcome to the Living Systems Pattern Atlas!
I have prepared this Living Systems Pattern Atlas as a support for sustainability practitioners working for sustainability transformation in complex practice settings.
If this is you, your journey through the Living Systems Pattern Atlas starts here!
The Pattern Atlas is a readily accessible, navigable and concise guide to the 5 Pattern Clusters, their 15 Essential Practice Patterns and 174 nested Elemental Patterns.
This Pattern Atlas exists to support your current and future practice and your professional judgement by orienting your approach towards working in complexity, and giving you an organized and coherent guide to essential principles, practices and capabilities for Living Systems Practice.
The Patterns emerged from a deep reflection on my extensive sustainability practice and academic experience and through my Doctoral research into sustainability culture and complexity and my interaction with other sustainability, community development, creative and innovation professionals over many decades of practice. These Patterns, then, are based on what I consider to be important for designing for transformation within complex practice settings. As such there is no right or wrong way to apply the patterns - they are not a rigid set of rules, so keep the following in mind:
At all time use your own best judgement - Robert Chambers1
This Pattern Atlas is a living document and will be in continuous development as a long-term project, with Pattern descriptions being added and updated in due course along with supporting Practice and Research Notes (under those tabs on the Second Nature Home Page). In your exploration of the Pattern Atlas, you will note that while Patterns are not yet fully complete there will be enough content to help you get started.
If you have read the series Foundations of Living Systems Practice, and worked your way through the accompanying Foundations Course, you will be familiar with the background and theoretical basis of pattern languages and the Living Systems Practice Patterns. Note that as Living Systems Practice and its pattern language is evolving, I have updated some aspects of the ecosystem here, and will do the same for other existing content soon.
If you are new to Second Nature, or new to the field of Living Systems you should go through the Foundations of Living Systems Practice article and/or the Foundations of Living Systems Practice Course before exploring the Practice Patterns. You can access these via the Home Page.
The Pattern Atlas - How It Works
The Pattern Atlas features an ecosystem of Practice Patterns. Each Pattern, no matter where it sits in the ecosystem, will follow a similar format with:
An inspirational and provocative quote from a key theorist or practitioner
An image of the Pattern in mandala form
Basic information on the Pattern
How the Pattern connects to other Patterns
A statement of purpose
A Pattern description
Descriptions of Elemental Patterns
Ways to apply the Pattern
Aligned practices
Coherent tools
Links to other relevant sources and references
Links for navigating to related Patterns or back to Base
Most Practice Patterns will be equivalent to up to four A4 pages in length to enable quick reference. Each Practice Pattern will be colour-coded, identified and linked so you know where it sits in the Pattern Ecosystem and you can navigate through the Atlas from wherever you are. Note that I have extended the Practice Pattern Ecosystem beyond what I have published previously to include five Pattern “clusters”.
Most Practice Patterns in the Ecosystem are expressed in the form of a mandala to emphasize the holistic, non-linear, scale-free nature of their application as flexible guides to practice. Only one pattern - the Phase Pattern - is linear due to its time and sequence-bounded nature; and the Design Cycles Pattern has some linearity, especially given its nested nature within the Phase Pattern - this will be explained in the Patterns themselves.
Most patterns in the Practice Pattern Ecosystem articulate to a Cluster or to a Higher-level Pattern. Some Patterns can be considered as nested in Higher-level Patterns, as they are responsive to activity driven by the Higher-level Pattern.
The general taxonomy in the Practice Patterns Ecosystem is:
Pattern Cluster: the family of Patterns with common purpose: Fundamental Living Systems Patterns; Transforming Patterns; Enriching Patterns; Capability Patterns; and Participant Patterns.
Essential Pattern: the highest level of discrete Patterns in the Practice Pattern Ecosystem, and the location of the key transformation activities in Living Systems Practice.
Elemental Pattern: any Pattern connecting to a Higher-level Pattern. Elemental Patterns may also have their own Elemental sub-patterns. I also refer to them as Elementals for brevity.
Nested Patterns: complete patterns nested entirely within another pattern, providing more nuanced actions that can influence the flow of the transformation. Key ones are: the Design Cycles Pattern nested within the Phase Pattern; and the Enabling, Guiding and Conviviality Patterns nested within the Design Cycles Pattern.
Supporting Patterns: these are Elemental Patterns within the Capability and Participant Pattern Clusters supporting transformation activities through application of deeper knowledge and understanding through practitioner and participant development.
The following is a representation of the Practice Pattern Ecosystem, organized vertically by Pattern Cluster, accompanied by images of each Cluster, Essential Pattern and Elemental Pattern. The Pattern Clusters are further organized into two categories: Foundation Principles and Practices; and Supporting Knowledge and Practices. For those new to Living Systems Practice, and Understanding of Foundation Principles and Practices are all you need to begin applying this Living Systems Practice approach in your work.
By selecting the zoom button on the image you will access a pop-up version, which is enlargeable to a good degree of definition so you can get a better view of the Pattern Clusters, Essential Patterns and the individual Elemental Patterns. Note that this graphic does not show Pattern nesting, as this would make the map below difficult to read!
Navigating the Pattern Atlas
The best option to navigate through the Practice Patterns is to navigate via links from this Base page to the Practice Patterns - and from there you can directly link to the 15 Fundamental, Transforming, Enriching, Capability and Participant Patterns - the basis of Living Systems Practice - and their 174 Elemental Patterns.
From each Elemental Pattern you can then navigate back to either the Higher-level Pattern or to Base. Access the Practice Pattern Ecosystem Map above to help you understand the Pattern Atlas structure and to help you navigate through the Atlas.
Links to each individual Practice Pattern page can be found in the next section.
This is particularly important since I will be writing new Practice Patterns as the inspiration rises rather than in a logical “order”. Substack currently only lists articles in order of dates of writing on the Second Nature Home page and the Living Systems Pattern Atlas tab. So if you navigate via the tab, you may have to do a lot of scrolling to find the Practice Pattern you want!
You can navigate through the Pattern Atlas starting from each Pattern description below. From each Pattern you can navigate back to Base or across to other Patterns in the Cluster or down to each Elemental Pattern. I hope you enjoy navigating this Pattern Atlas!
Pattern Clusters and their Essential Patterns
Fundamental Living Systems Patterns Cluster: These are the core patterns describing our interaction within natural systems - their ecosystem limits and planetary boundaries - and the general principles of how to engage in development in an ecologically sustainable manner. This cluster generates and grounds the underlying ethos for sustainability, with the next Cluster - Transforming Patterns - encompassing the actions towards sustainability transformation.
Natural Systems Pattern: This Pattern places the fundamental understanding of how natural systems work at the core of Living Systems Practice, and stresses the primacy of an ethic of care in human action to remain within ecosystem limits (local) and planetary boundaries (global).
Link to Natural Systems Pattern
Human Systems Pattern: This Pattern maps the forces acting in human systems; centres their relationship to the natural world, while acknowledging mediation through socio-technical interrelations; and the value of learning as system feedback towards the emergence of an ethos of care.
Link to Human Systems Pattern
Sustainable Systems Pattern: This Pattern lays out the fundamental principles of how all forms of human development - such as personal, social, cultural, community, economic, resource, technological - can be implemented within a living systems approach.
Link to Sustainable Systems Pattern
Transforming Patterns Cluster: These are the core Practice Patterns enabling the design of the transformation and providing the practice framework for sustainability practitioners and participants. All other Pattern Clusters support this Cluster, becuase this is where the real work of transformation happens.
Pathways Pattern: This Pattern offers different strategic options for activating the transformation, including options for practitioners to pursue sustainability transformation in any organization or social entity.
Link to Pathways Pattern
Phase Pattern: This Pattern describes the time-related phases of change in a purposeful sustainability transformation.
Link to Phase Pattern
Design Cycles Pattern: This Pattern is nested within the Phase Pattern identifying the practices for designing the transformation through each phase of practice.
Link to Design Cycles Pattern
Enriching Patterns Cluster: These Patterns support a nuanced approach to transformation through application of deeper knowledge, understanding and synthesis to actions undertaken in the Design Cycles Pattern.
Enabling Pattern: This Pattern enables, stimulates and moderates synergies between any of the Design Cycles’ Elemental Patterns through key practices.
Link to Enabling Pattern
Guiding Pattern: This Pattern contains the key practices for applying behavioural science at the service of the sustainability transformation within a Living Systems Practice approach.
Link to Guiding Pattern
Conviviality Pattern: This Pattern is based on the principal of “living together” and is a special pattern that supports the transformation process by emphasizing practices that promote greater connection and willingness to work together in diverse and harmonious ways.
Link to Conviviality Pattern
Capability Patterns Cluster: These Patterns support practitioner capability development in Living Systems Practice through growing and embedding a culture of sustainability at a deep personal and transpersonal level.
Knowledge Pattern: This Pattern lays out the knowledge base and the fundamental theoretical themes supporting Living Systems Practice and is the template for developing the knowledge, experience and capability of sustainability practitioners for working with complex adaptive living systems.
Link to Knowledge Pattern
Practitioner Pattern: To apply Living Systems Practice across diverse contexts practitioners must foster capabilities beyond normal, linear, mechanistic and conservative professional practice. This Pattern outlines the qualities that practitioners need to cultivate in order to practice effectively in complexity.
Link to Practitioner Pattern
Soul Pattern: This pattern positions Living Systems Practice as profoundly soulful, yet connected to a practical, grounded sensibility. The soul dimension is activated by the inherent motivation of committed sustainability practitioners to work for the benefit of their fellow humans as well as for the health of our natural systems, as an expression of our higher selves and of our connection to nature.
Link to Soul Pattern
Participant Patterns Cluster: Participation of people in organizations and networks of concern to them is a core dimension of Living Systems Practice. The interaction of individual qualities and worldviews that participants bring to the transformation process can be highly complex and create positive and negative impact. A complexity-based approach provides the best path forward because of the need to be as inclusive as possible in order to understand the current state of people and their organizations, and their readiness for change. Three patterns in this cluster are:
Social Entity Pattern: The capacity of any social entity embarking on a transformation process is critical, especially an understanding of their current state and readiness for change. This Pattern identifies capacity considerations that have an impact on the commencing Pathway Pattern chosen.
Link to Social Entity Pattern
Worldview Pattern: Individual participants’ worldviews and their demonstrated behaviours emerging from those views have substantial influence on an organization’s capacity to change, and any organizational capacity mapping should account for extant worldviews of participants.
Link to Worldview Pattern
Archetypes Pattern: Further to the idea of a participant worldview, is the concept of a human archetype and its impact on any transformation process: that is, observable patterns of behaviour that participants in change regularly express across all types of organization. Participant archetypes and their worldviews are a particularly important consideration in designing for change.
Link to Archetypes Pattern
Version 1.1 - 7 May 2024
Version 1.2 - 25 May 2024
Version 1.3 - 30 May 2024
Version 2 - 12 March 2025
Version 2.1 - 31 March 2025
Version 2.1.1 - 8 May 2025
Version 2.1.2 - 31 July 2025
Chambers, R. (2000). Whose Reality Counts? Workshop Notes. Unpublished workshop notes. Melbourne: IDSS Professional Development Program.