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.
Interesting essay by Stewart Brand for the Journal of Design and Science, outlining the strengths of a construct called “Pace Layering”.
Even though he focuses on human society and a six-layered structure (Fashion/art, Commerce, Infrastructure, Governance, Culture, Nature) as the basis of a healthy civilization for the most part of Pace Layering: How Complex Systems Learn and Keep Learning, Brand proposes all dynamic systems to be based on a structure made of multiple layers of different pace and size in order to be robust and durable.
In design –no matter the specific field, but especially in software and systems design, of course, we come across and/or form a lot of dynamic systems with the need to be adaptable, so pace layering might provide a valuable concept to build upon.