As a lifelong science fiction fan, I’ve often drawn inspiration from speculative worlds for my educational practice. In Maureen McHugh’s “China Mountain Zhang,” a favorite of mine, the protagonist studies an approach to design that treats buildings as responsive, living systems. This fictional discipline of “organic engineering” challenges my own predilections for modular course design, offering a provocative counter-paradigm: What if we designed courses not as modular structures but as integrated ecosystems first?

Having advocated for highly modular approaches throughout my career, McHugh’s novel presents a fascinating challenge. Zhang’s journey from mechanical thinking to organic vision mirrors a tension in my own work—between the efficiency of modular design and the coherence of more holistic approaches.

Like many concepts I’ve borrowed from science fiction, this organic paradigm creates productive dissonance, reminding me that effective design requires knowing which framework best suits each specific learning context.

Modular vs. Organic: A Comparative Framework

Before exploring specific applications, it’s valuable to establish a clear comparison between modular and organic approaches to course design. In McHugh’s novel, organic engineering represents a futuristic design discipline where buildings are conceived as responsive, integrated systems rather than static structures. Zhang studies under Engineer Woo, who teaches him to connect with the design system itself rather than imposing predetermined structures—a perspective that challenges conventional educational design thinking.

Aspect	Modular Design	Organic Design
Structure	Discrete, interchangeable units	Integrated, interconnected ecosystem
Development	Sequential assembly of components	Holistic vision refined into details
Strengths	Scalability, reusability, clear assessment points	Coherence, narrative flow, intuitive progression
Challenges	Potential fragmentation, artificial transitions	Complexity, resistance to measurement, institutional fit
Designer’s Role	Architect planning and connecting components	Facilitator attuned to emergent possibilities
Ideal Contexts	Standardized content, technical skills, mastery learning	Interdisciplinary learning, complex problem-solving, creative domains

Rather than viewing these approaches as binary opposites, effective design often involves strategic integration of both mindsets—knowing when precision requires modularity and when complexity demands organic thinking. Throughout this article, I’ll explore how principles from McHugh’s fictional “organic engineering” can enhance our approach regardless of where our designs fall on this spectrum.

Foundational Principles: Learning from Fictional Worlds

Connecting Designer to System

One of his first tasks with organic engineering is to design a beach house. Before Zhang could create his beach house in full, he had to learn to tap into the system’s capacity through a profound shift in consciousness:

I expand, the system becomes my own memory. I fall through. I feel my mind’s boundaries, I know how little I can think about at one time, and then those boundaries become unimaginably huge.

This description evokes the neural interfaces and mind-expansions common in science fiction. However, it articulates something I’ve experienced but rarely articulated in design—moments when analytical planning gives way to a more intuitive understanding. This attunement involves deep immersion in subject matter beyond teaching requirements, thorough exploration of the environments where learning will occur, holistic understanding of learners as complete individuals, and access to intuitive knowledge about how learning unfolds.

These practices complement rather than replace analytical design, revealing possibilities that purely systematic approaches might miss—much like how science fiction helps us envision alternatives to present reality. The expanded thinking capacity Zhang describes parallels what becomes possible when we fully attune to the learning systems we’re designing: our mental boundaries expand, allowing us to hold more complexity and see more connections than our normal thinking permits.

Integrated Systems: Details, Connections, and Flow

In McHugh’s novel, Zhang’s education in organic engineering begins with frustrating exercises where he must design individual elements without understanding their context. Only later does he realize that this training prepared him to appreciate both fine details and their relationships within complex systems. This fictional training journey parallels the evolution many instructional designers experience when moving from component-focused to integrated design thinking.

In organic design, individual elements and their relationships create an integrated experience that exceeds the sum of its parts. Zhang observes about the Wuxi Complex:

The number of ingenious little details in this complex stagger the imagination. It is not only that the particular details are so good, but that they dovetail.

This observation captures both the importance of well-crafted elements and their interconnections.

Courses exhibit what complexity theorists call “sensitive dependence on initial conditions”—minor variations in setup can transform learning outcomes completely. A thoughtfully crafted welcome message shapes learners’ mindset before they encounter any content. A carefully selected foundational concept supports understanding of everything that follows. These seemingly small details create ripple effects throughout the entire learning experience.

This sensitivity to details extends to how elements connect and flow into one another. In Zhang’s beach house design, spaces progress naturally:

a great room, a kitchen divided by very little wall, slightly higher than the long great room with its window looking over the ocean… The bedrooms are beyond the kitchen, higher to take advantage of the uneven terrain.

This attention to natural progression transforms movement through the environment—a principle equally valuable in learning design.

When learning pathways follow intuitive progression rather than administrative convenience, navigation becomes effortless. Information architecture that guides without constraining allows for exploration within supportive boundaries. Activity sequences that build momentum rather than repeatedly resetting create a sense of progress and purpose. These principles of flow apply whether one leans toward modular or organic approaches, though their implementation differs significantly between them.

The integrated perspective treats courses not as collections of disconnected parts but as ecosystems where each element influences and is influenced by the whole—creating learning experiences characterized by both thoughtful details and natural progression.

Understanding the Building Blocks

In McHugh’s novel, Engineer Woo has Zhang practice by designing individual elements—doors one day, floors the next—before attempting complete structures. “After that I use the cutter to smooth them over until it is smooth as glass, polishing away the traces,” Zhang describes, in what could be a metaphor for the refinement process in course design. Initially frustrated, Zhang eventually realizes the purpose:

I begin to realize the importance of doors. They set the tone for the building, they are the second interaction between building and person, the first being the sight of the building.

This approach resonates with my modular design instincts while suggesting a deeper practice. Rather than simply creating interchangeable components, we might develop profound understanding of each element’s nature and its relationship to the whole experience. A discussion prompt isn’t merely a question, but the doorway through which learners enter a conceptual space. An assessment isn’t just a measurement tool, but a window revealing the landscape of understanding. This element-level mastery provides the vocabulary for both modular and organic approaches, allowing us to polish and refine each component until it serves its purpose perfectly within the larger system.

Beyond Analytical Planning

Zhang’s breakthrough comes when he stops planning his beach house and instead envisions it holistically:

I am using the system to concentrate for me. The system is there for me, a part of me. To modify the house I only have to think it and it is so, it hangs there.

This moment reminds me of how science fiction often portrays intuitive leaps in understanding—quantum shifts in perspective that transform how characters perceive reality. It challenges my analytical tendencies, which typically favor modular design’s systematic construction. Woo Eubong’s instruction to Zhang captures this counter-intuitive approach perfectly:

Don’t plan the building, let the system do that. You just let go, let your mind drift and do what it wants.

Yet I’ve experienced rare moments when a course seems to reveal itself whole—the structure emerging before the components are defined, like a speculative world taking shape in a writer’s mind. These experiences suggest a practice that complements modular approaches: periodically suspending analytical planning to envision complete learning journeys; mentally inhabiting the course from a learner’s perspective; allowing structure to emerge rather than imposing predetermined templates; and capturing holistic vision before breaking it down into implementable components.

Challenges and Limitations

The Vertigo of Integration

Zhang initially struggles with organic design, experiencing overwhelming complexity:

a multiplicity of options, substances to use for walls, shapes in my mind flowing and shifting like ice. Everything becomes mutable, nothing stable, there are no boundaries.

This description resonates with my experiences attempting more organic approaches. The complexity of holding an entire learning experience in mind can be overwhelming, especially for those of us trained in modular thinking. The cognitive dissonance mirrors what characters in science fiction often experience when encountering higher-dimensional thinking or vastly expanded consciousness—a vertigo that comes with perceiving too many possibilities simultaneously.

Strategies for managing this include starting with smaller-scale organic elements within modular frameworks, collaborating with others to hold different aspects of the vision, using visual mapping tools to externalize complex relationships, and alternating between holistic and analytical thinking modes. These approaches allow us to gradually expand our capacity for integrated thinking without becoming lost in the overwhelming number of options.

Institutional Constraints

As Zhang discovers at New Mexico-Texas, organizational structures often pull designers toward standardization. Educational institutions similarly constrain innovation through:

• Rigid course approval processes requiring premature specification
• Learning management systems enforcing structural assumptions
• Assessment requirements misaligned with organic learning
• Scheduling frameworks fragmenting the learning experience

Working within these constraints requires creativity and sometimes strategic compromise—balancing organic ideals with institutional realities.

The Challenge of Measurement

Organic design resists simple metrics. Zhang learns this when examining the Wuxi Complex: altering one element for improved lighting might reduce energy efficiency or ventilation.

Similarly, evaluating more organic courses requires nuanced approaches:

• Examining interdependent outcomes rather than isolated achievements
• Considering emergent qualities that resist direct measurement
• Evaluating component interactions rather than individual elements
• Valuing coherence alongside specific learning objectives

This challenge persists whether one leans toward modular or organic approaches—though organic design makes the limitations of conventional assessment more apparent.

Final Thoughts (For Now)

My own path has been marked by both failures and successes—moments when organic vision collapsed under implementation constraints, and times when modular designs failed to create coherent experiences. Yet each attempt brings me closer to creating learning environments that breathe and respond, much like the living systems in speculative worlds that have inspired my thinking about education.

As Zhang reflects:

I am myself, myself, but able to think and have the thing I think in my mind without holding it, without concentrating, because I am using the system to concentrate for me.

This synthesis of designer and system suggests a promising direction—not abandoning structured approaches, but extending them through more holistic vision. The goal isn’t to replace modular design with organic alternatives, but to develop fluency in both languages, applying each where it serves learning most effectively.

Additional Resources