The core of all living process is step-by-step adaptation — the modification and evolution which happen gradually in response to information about the degree to which the emerging structure supports the whole.

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• The living structure emerges, slowly, step by step, and as the process goes forward step by step there is continuous feedback which allows the process to guide the system towards greater wholeness, and coherence, and adaptation.quote0.871
  Concise definition of the core dynamic of living process.
• The step-by-step evolution of living centers, in a progressive differentiating process, is a biological necessity — an essential part of the adaptation of a complex system.claim0.866
  Claims that unfolding is not a stylistic choice but a biological requirement for adaptive buildings.
• A living process is a step-by-step adaptive process that goes forward in small increments, with opportunity for feedback and correction at every step.claim0.855
  Operational definition of the incremental, self-correcting nature of living process.
• The core of a living process is that it comes from people, from their inner desires—and genuinely does so; that it meets their archetypal core, and thereby makes them feel at home.claim0.855
  Foundational assertion about user-centered origin of living structure.
• In good architecture and good city-building, step-by-step adaptation was historically always present as a necessary core.claim0.848
  Historical claim that all successful building environments used stepwise adaptation.
• The core of a living process—whether a building is large or small—is that it comes from people, from their inner desires—and genuinely does so; that it meets their archetypal core, and thereby makes them feel at homequote0.845
  Concise statement of the people-centered foundation of living process.
• A living process is any adaptive process which generates living structure, step by step, through structure-preserving transformations.claim0.845
  Core definition that anchors the whole chapter; asserts the necessary and sufficient structure of life-creating activity in the built world.
• In a living process, every step is done in such a way as to increase the beauty—the life—of the whole.quote0.839
  Encapsulates the chapter's main message.