Permaculture patterns - Lobes

This is a thread to share and discuss patterns in permaculture - specifically the use of lobes. Let's think about lobes, examples in nature and how they might beneficially be applied in a permaculture design.

Lobes can be very similar to waves in appearance, but are formed for different reasons. Lobes are one way of increasing the edge effect and increasing the surface area between two bodies.
First of all, here's a few examples of lobes in nature:


The structure of the brain


source


The surface of lungs


source


Inside of small intestine


source


coral structure:

coral

source


By increasing the contact area lobes enable exchange of materials, energy and attention. This is used in keyhole bed designs such as discussed in this thread

keyhole bed with wicker sides

Other ideas for using lobes in design are:
   

Seating areas: enabling contemplation without being in a high energy area,

   

heat exchangers and filters: increasing surface area of exchange media,

   

Shop and exhibition layout: increasing customer browse time

What other practical examples of lobes can we come up with?

The first thing I thought of was a page in Toby Hemenway's book Gaia's Garden: A Guide to Home-Scale Permaculture, Second Edition (c) 2000,2009 with recursive/fractal/nested keyholes forming lobes. A quick search found this scan of page 39 on Pintrest.

Ooh, I like the multiple keyholes resulting in a mandala garden! Thank you Christopher. I'm contemplating a new vegetable garden (sort of permaculture zone one) at the moment, and am definitely at the wide open planning stage. I know I will need a path past the garden, but maybe something with nodes would be fun!

You used this section of hugelbeds in your waves pattern post. What principle would you draw on to decide whether that's waves or lobes?

Good question - made me think, thanks Christopher! They are both part of the same thing and can be similar forms ..... I guess waves are more for a dynamic - stopping something passing, whereas lobes are more static - catching something that is likely to be just browsing... So if you want lots of hedge area for a goat to browse then lobes will be a better option, whereas if you want to catch water flowing down a slope swales are more appropriate. Does that make sense?