complexity

After we build: The Ethics of Scaffolds

Most structures are built to last. But what if that isn't the point? Sometime care looks like building, and sometimes care looks like stepping aside.

Eva Tomas Casado

07 Aug 2025 — 3 min read

Image created by the author with DALL-E Open AI

Most structures are built to last. But what if lasting isn’t the point?

In my last piece, I wrote about the limits of design in complex systems, the quiet truth many try to overhear, that structure does not guarantee emergence. A well-crafted strategy might make space for something new. But whether something grows in that space is not up to us alone.

This time, I want to stay with that insight a little longer.Not to question whether we should build.But to ask: how do we build, knowing that we don’t control the outcome?

And what kind of responsibility comes with that?

Some call this curation. I think it’s more demanding than that.

On futures we mistake for change

When the present grows too heavy to move, organizations often reach for the same answer they always reach for, the promise of more control. The reflex is almost automatic. Prutures.

Too Much to Move.

We often imagine change as a clean swap of parts, one process out, another in, and we keep telling ourselves that with enough focus and discipline the machine will run better.

The Art of Letting Go Without Falling Apart

Transformation isn’t subtraction. It’s not about taking something out to make space. It’s the reconfiguration itself that changes everything. Letting go isn’t absence, it’s a shift in how things relate so something new can begin.

The Limits of Design: Why Emergence Can’t Be Engineered

We like to believe that if we build the right structures, policies, teams, strategies, or incentive systems, something good will emerge. We hold on to the hope that good intentions paired with solid design will stabilize the future. But if we’re honest, we often don’t know whether they will.