2.5.4. Net or Cracking

Captures energy, slows energy, distributes energy (communication), adds strength, tessellation, creates relationships/edge. This sometimes shows up as tessellation, which is a pattern of shapes that fit together perfectly, without any gaps. This is often of one single shape, such as a hexagon, fit together in a zigzag pattern.

Beehives are incredible examples of engineering for efficiency. Bees build hexagonal, tessellated “net” patterns that allow maximum efficient storage of honey and bee babies, while allowing air flow and control of humidity, as honey ferments when exposed to water. 

 We use this zigzag tessellation pattern of bees to plant veggies, like lettuce, beets, carrots, or broccoli in garden beds. It reduces weed pressure and allows many more plants to be planted in the same space, than straight rows allow for.

Net patterns exist at all levels:

Cracking relieves pressure. When dry soil cracks, this can be hard on roots, but it offers an opportunity for permaculturists to amend the soil with organic matter, like compost, without disturbing it. We’ll explore ways of hydrating landscapes through cracking in the water section of this course. 

Windshield glass is tempered to cause it to crack and net into tiny pieces without sharp, jagged edges, for safety reasons. This is an example of increasing the intrinsic nature of glass to break into a cracking or net-like pattern, to increase safety.

Nets are flexible, and allow efficient distribution through a system. The internet is a great example. If one part fails, the rest continues to work. Another example is “net and pan” irrigation.

Nets can also expand and contract easily, in a number of ways. 

Nets can also expand and contract easily, in a number of ways. 

Net patterns were used to create large buildings before we had rebar or steel beams:

A strong network of people creates much more resilience than a weak one. Net patterns have many uses in invisible structure design. Many cultures have knowledge of this net pattern as a force within the universe. Here is one example:

"Indra's net" is an infinitely large net of cords owned by the Vedic deva Indra, which hangs over his palace on Mount Meru, the axis mundi of Buddhist and Hindu cosmology. In this metaphor, Indra's net has a multifaceted jewel at each vertex, and each jewel is reflected in all of the other jewels.>

In the Huayan school of Chinese Buddhism, which follows the Avatamsaka Sutra, the image of "Indra's net" is used to describe the interconnectedness of the universe. Francis H. Cook describes Indra's net:

Far away in the heavenly abode of the great god Indra, there is a wonderful net which has been hung by some cunning artificer in such a manner that it stretches out infinitely in all directions. In accordance with the extravagant tastes of deities, the artificer has hung a single glittering jewel in each "eye" of the net, and since the net itself is infinite in dimension, the jewels are infinite in number.

There hang the jewels, glittering "like" stars in the first magnitude, a wonderful sight to behold. If we now arbitrarily select one of these jewels for inspection and look closely at it, we will discover that in its polished surface there are reflected all the other jewels in the net, infinite in number. Not only that, but each of the jewels reflected in this one jewel is also reflecting all the other jewels, so that there is an infinite reflecting process occurring. (Wikipedia)

You can use net patterns to strengthen structures, like trellises, to distribute water, “net and pan”, to distribute information or resources, and in many other ways.