• Pace Layers

    How do complex systems, like your business, manage to somehow be stable and resilient while they constantly morph and evolve?

To run a company, you need to be analyst of company-sized problems and designer of organization-wide solutions. You can’t be a good diagnostician without understanding complex adaptive systems – but even if you are, it’s very difficult to build concrete solutions and tools from your insights. One mental model of practical use is Stewart Brand’s “Pace Layers” concept.

Architecture revealed the pattern first. In 1995, Stewart Brand published “How Buildings Learn: What Happens After They’re Built,” exploring a fundamental paradox: buildings appear static and permanent, yet they constantly evolve. As Brand observed, “Almost no buildings adapt well. They’re designed not to adapt; also budgeted and financed not to, constructed not to, administered not to, maintained not to, regulated and taxed not to, even remodeled not to. But all buildings (except monuments) adapt anyway, however poorly, because the usages in and around them are changing constantly.”

A profound insight emerged from Brand’s investigation into how exceptional buildings manage to be both enduring and adaptive. Drawing heavily on the work of British architect Frank Duffy – ideas developed in the 1960s and 70s and later elaborated in his 2008 book “Work and the City” – Brand discovered that successful buildings operate through layered systems of different temporal rhythms.

Duffy’s architectural framework identified four distinct layers, each with its own lifespan. The “Shell” – encompassing foundations, roof, structure, and exterior skin – endures for 50 years or more. Within this permanent framework, the “Services” layer of mechanical systems, elevators, and infrastructure typically lasts 15-20 years. The “Scenery” layer, shaped by space planners for corporate tenants and other users, changes every 5-10 years. Finally, the “Sets” – furniture, partitions, and surface treatments managed by interior designers – refresh every few years.

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Some interior designers argue that office architecture is simply a framework on which multiple layers of interior design can be hung, making architecture, financially speaking at any rate, a branch of interior design. Not many architects agree with this.

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― Frank Duffy (in “Work and the City”)

This architectural insight would prove to be far more than a theory about buildings. Brand had stumbled upon a fundamental pattern of how complex systems maintain stability while enabling change, a pattern extending far beyond architecture to illuminate the dynamics of civilizations, ecosystems, and human institutions.

A well-designed building recognizes and respects the different temporal rhythms over which its components naturally evolve. The principle seems obvious once articulated, yet Brand’s critique of high-profile architects reveals how frequently this natural order gets violated, resulting in buildings that fight against rather than flow with change.

Brand wasn’t finished with the concept. Decades later, in 2018, he returned to these differently paced layers and extended the framework to all complex systems, and especially human civilization itself. The question that drove this expansion was profound: How do systems, societies, and ecosystems absorb shocks and changes while simultaneously resisting and adapting to them? How can any system be both resilient and rejuvenating?

The answer, Brand discovered, follows the same mechanism as successful buildings. Different components within any complex system operate at different rates of change, forming distinct layers that function mostly (but not completely) independent of one another. Slower layers provide constraint and stability to faster layers above them, while faster layers generate innovation and disruption that eventually influences the slower layers below.

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Fast learns, slow remembers.  Fast proposes, slow disposes.  Fast is discontinuous, slow is continuous.  Fast and small instructs slow and big by accrued innovation and by occasional revolution.  Slow and big controls small and fast by constraint and constancy.  Fast gets all our attention, slow has all the power.

All durable dynamic systems have this sort of structure.  It is what makes them adaptable and robust.

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― Stewart Brand (from “Pace Layering: How Complex Systems Learn and Keep Learning“)

The opening credits to “House of Cards” beautifully illustrate the Pace Layer idea. The panning, time lapse sequences contrast the power and relative impermanence of the political institutions with the frenetic hustle of everyday life.

Fashion – Commerce – Infrastructure – Governance – Culture – Nature.

Stewart Brand arranged these labels from fastest to slowest to describe the pace layers of human civilization. Fashion changes weekly, Commerce runs on quarterly cycles, while Culture evolves over centuries. Each layer moves at its own speed, yet they all influence each other in predictable ways.

Most companies live primarily in Brand’s Commerce layer—focused on transactions, quarterly results, and market dynamics. But companies are complex systems too, with their own internal pace layers that mirror society’s structure. I’ve adapted Brand’s framework to map what happens inside organizations.

Work – Infrastructure – Governance – Culture & Science – Context.

> Work (Days to Weeks)

This is where the action happens—the corporate equivalent of Commerce. Think 30-60 minute meetings, focused work sessions, daily tasks, and simple projects lasting a few weeks. This layer moves fast because it has to. Customers demand prompt responses, deadlines loom, and sudden problems require immediate attention.

> Infrastructure (Months to Years)

These are the tools, systems, and processes that support daily work. Your CRM system, standard operating procedures, organizational charts—they all live here. Infrastructure both enables and constrains the adjacent Work layer. A well-designed contract template helps lawyers handle new cases efficiently, while a rigid call center script limits how operators can help frustrated customers. Infrastructure changes slower than Work, but Work constantly pressures it to evolve.

> Governance (Years)

This layer sets the rules and policies that get embedded into Infrastructure. It defines what tools can do, what processes must include, and what behaviors are acceptable. When new tools create new possibilities, they create demand for new rules one layer up. Corporate Governance moves faster than societal governance—think years rather than decades—because companies operate in a more compressed timeframe than entire civilizations.

> Culture & Science (Decades)

I’ve expanded Brand’s “Culture” label to include both company culture and business fundamentals. Culture encompasses the unwritten rules and ingrained behaviors that often trump official policies. If your company culture conflicts with your written Governance rules, culture usually wins. The “Science” part represents the first principles and inherent characteristics of your business—economic realities that management can’t simply choose to ignore, like the physics of your industry.

> Context (Generational)

Where Brand placed Nature as the ultimate constraint, companies face Context—the external forces they can’t control. Regulatory changes, technological disruption, economic shifts, new ownership. Like climate change or asteroids, these forces shape everything below them, usually slowly but sometimes suddenly and dramatically.

Understanding your company’s pace layers helps you diagnose problems and design solutions more effectively. When change initiatives fail, it’s often because they’re operating at the wrong layer or ignoring the constraints imposed by slower layers below. To change how people work, you might need to first change Infrastructure. If you’re thinking about new Infrastructure, you’ll probably need new Governance rules. The pace layers model reminds us that sustainable change usually works with these natural rhythms, not against them.

How does this model help you run your business better? Anyone wrestling with complex systems is either analyzing problems or designing solutions—often both. Pace layers are a practical mental model helping with both.

Many organizational problems stem from breakdowns between layers. I once worked with a software engineering organization which experienced such a problem (which stumped me, I couldn’t diagnose what was going wrong at the time.) Leadership had set what I thought were great new priorities and policies. They’d made all the right calls, set clear direction, and communicated clearly and frequently. But in daily practice, not much changed and output and outcomes largely remained unchanged.

Thinking about this in Pace Layer terms, I’ve come to think the disconnect stems from ignoring Infrastructure. The software engineers heard and understood the messages from the top. And leadership knew this, which made it so hard to comprehend why the expected shift wasn’t happening. But leadership didn’t set up an initiative to deliberately adjust the engineers’ tools, processes or review meetings. Because their daily work environment stayed the same, old habits and engrained ways of working probably pulled them back to the status quo. As the saying goes, it’s a little bit of madness to repeat the same thing and expect a different result.

In another project, we approached things differently. We deliberately started with altered Infrastructure, but strongly backed it up from the Governance layer. Our problem was solving a complex product portfolio issue: we had an unmaintained list of digital location products—maps, traffic data, navigation tools. This created mounting friction in our go-to-market efforts. Sales teams weren’t completely clear what products we actually supported or where we had coverage, leading to a lot of internal information gathering and alignment communication. At the same time, some sales managers try to exploit the confusion by selling non-standard product to customers, creating extra workload and distraction in the Product organization.

We tackled this by creating new tooling: a simple product database and structured launch and deprecation processes. As expected, this in itself didn’t change much. Product managers ignored the new system they weren’t used to working with, and sales managers continued to hand craft deals together. But we had a strong deal governance structure in place, and leveraged it to start enforcing a clear new policy. Nothing could be offered to customers unless it was properly registered in the product tool. But we also guaranteed that anything in the tool would be supported: whether it belonged to be in the list or not, no deal would be blocked.

This changed behavior dramatically. Within 2-3 months, Sales focused on standard products instead of pursuing more creative deals bending the portfolio to customer wishes. Product managers had strong incentives to properly launch standard products, which included paying attention to less obvious tasks such as ensuring SAP codes were created and sales collateral was available. It also instilled discipline to remove outdated or unsupported offerings from the list which initially populated the tool, to avoid sales made new commitments to customers. Once the Work habits had changed and some Infrastructure kinks were ironed out, Sales managed to sell faster and more focused, Product got less distracted, and deal Governance got smoother too.

Pace Layer thinking teaches us to consider the different forces and different time spans at work in our system. When change initiatives fail, we need to ask ourselves if we’re not intervening at the wrong layer or ignoring constraints from slower layers. The most powerful changes will happen when we take an “all layers” approach and make sure they reinforce each other. And obviously we need to respect each layer’s pace. We can’t reasonably expect Culture-layer changes on Infrastructure timelines,.

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Don’t create a fifty-year solution for a five-minute problem.

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― Mitchell Kapor (from “A Software Design Manifesto”)

Software engineers often connect most immediately with pace layers, not just because of how organizations work, but because of how software itself works. This isn’t coincidental. When Stewart Brand lectures about pace layers, he notes that people frequently tell him “this is about software architecture.” They’re right. Software systems have their own pace layers: user interfaces change frequently, application logic evolves regularly, databases persist longer, and underlying platforms and protocols can last decades.

But the insight extends far beyond software. Once you start seeing pace layers, you’ll spot them everywhere. Marketing campaigns (fast) vs. brand identity (slow). Daily standup meetings (fast) vs. team formation and trust (slow). Bug fixes (fast) vs. technical architecture decisions (slow).

The key is always the same: identify which layer your problem lives in, then choose solutions that work at that pace.

Pace Layers

Credits

Words > Stefan Verstraeten

Ideas > Stewart Brand, “Pace Layering: How Complex Systems Learn and Keep Learning.”, https://jods.mitpress.mit.edu/pub/issue3-brand/release/2

> Frank Duffy, “Work and the City”, 2008 (Black Dog Publishing), ISBN13 978-1906155124.

> “Pace Layers”, inaugural annual journal (02024), published by The Long Now Foundation,

> Mitchell Kapor, “A Software Design Manifesto”, published in Dr. Dobb’s Journal, Volume 16, Issue 1 (Jan 1991)

Photo > Burning Notre Dame de Paris, TIME magazine, 15 April 2019.

> (Frank Duffy signed!) copy of “Work and the City”, photos by Stefan Verstraeten

> Pace Layers journal, photos by Stefan Verstraeten

Video > “House of Cards”, Netflix, February 2013

> Paul Saffo and Stewart Brand discuss the Pace Layer framework in a January 2015 lecture at The Long Now Foundation