You may know the architect Christopher Alexander from "A Pattern Language" and his influence on design patterns/agile. Later in life he studied the organizing

You may know the architect Christopher Alexander from "A Pattern Language" and his influence on design patterns/agile. Later in life he studied the organizing principles of nature and well-man-made artifacts and discussed the common patterns in his books "On the nature of order" [1]. The ideas are perhaps more grandiose than this author is discussing, but also very interesting when applied to engineering. [1] http://www.amazon.com/Nature-Order-Phenomenon-Environmental-Structure/dp/0972652914 http://www.amazon.com/Nature-Order-Phenomenon-Environmental-...