Building the Architecture In Between

Introduction

Modern governance faces a core dilemma: people’s interconnected, “horizontal” lives contrast with government’s vertical, siloed structures.

Rather than pursuing an unrealistic overhaul, this article proposes a framework for “connecting architecture”: intentional mechanisms that help government coordinate around real - world needs.

By examining four models of horizontal connection, from informal networks to formal transversal entities, the discussion highlights practical strategies for aligning public services with the complexity of community life.

The Enduring Challenge: Horizontal Lives, Vertical States

People live interconnected, horizontal lives: education, health, housing, transport, and employment all overlap around individuals and communities. This reality forms the “horizontal architecture” of daily life.

Government, however, is organized vertically, with departments like health, education, and housing each operating separately. While this structure provides specialization and accountability, it often misaligns with people’s lived experiences, resulting in duplication, delays, and frustration. These vertical silos rarely coordinate effectively, even at the strategic or service level.

Completely restructuring government to mirror real life is not practical or desirable. Instead, the core challenge is to develop “connecting architecture” - mechanisms that bridge vertical silos and better align government action with the horizontal realities of communities.

Four Models of Horizontal Connection: Strengths and Weaknesses

Governments typically develop four main forms of horizontal connection (though others exist), each with distinct advantages and limitations. Recognizing and understanding these models is essential for designing effective intermediary connecting architecture:

Informal Networks

• Description: Personal and relational ties across departments, built through past collaborations or shared interests. They function like an underground root system, connecting people beyond formal boundaries.
• Advantages: Highly adaptive and resilient. They enable rapid knowledge sharing, foster trust, and can be leveraged for diverse purposes, often excelling in crisis situations where formal structures lag.
• Disadvantages: Fragile and largely invisible to formal organizations. Their continuity depends on individuals, making them vulnerable to turnover and difficult to formalize or scale.
• Example: During the 2010 Haiti earthquake, informal networks among public servants enabled swift, cross - agency coordination within hours, far outpacing formal mechanisms.

Ad Hoc Collaborations

• Description: Temporary, project-focused groups formed to address specific challenges. They dissolve once the mission concludes.
• Advantages: Deliver clear results and often spark new, lasting relationships that can seed future networks. Their focus drives efficiency and action.
• Disadvantages: Limited in long - term impact. When the project ends, these groups can vanish without leaving an institutional legacy.
• Example: A cross - department working group assembled for a single government initiative that disbands after achieving its goal.

Semi - formal Clusters

• Description: Thematic forums or interest groups with a loose mandate. They blend the relational strengths of informal networks with partial legitimacy from formal entities.
• Advantages: Offer flexibility, thematic focus, and can draw on perspectives from multiple departments. Well-designed clusters bridge both informal and formal benefits.
• Disadvantages: Need thoughtful design and ongoing support. They may lack clear mandates, stable resources, or strong connections to the formal machinery of government, making them leadership - dependent.
• Example: A "Premier’s innovation group" with representatives from each department provides a platform for cross-sector collaboration, such at the Western Cape Innovation for Impact initiative.

Formally Constituted Transversal Entities

• Description: Committees, working groups, or forums with official mandates, meeting schedules, and reporting lines.
• Advantages: Deeply integrated with government systems, ensuring visibility, accountability, and resource allocation. Their authority supports sustained, coordinated action.
• Disadvantages: Relationships are mandated, not organic, often limiting genuine engagement. Fixed schedules can miss real - world opportunities and challenges, and formal entities risk becoming slow, ceremonial, or detached from evolving needs.
• Example: The UK’s Social Exclusion Unit or Brazil’s inter - ministerial committees show how well - designed formal entities can drive integrated policy.

Intentionality as the Enabler: Strategies for Optimization

Success in building intermediary architecture lies in intentionally cultivating multiple forms of horizontal connection. Governments should create enabling environments that maximize strengths and minimize weaknesses, taking a multi - model approach tailored to local needs.

Specific strategies for each architecture type include:

Optimizing Informal Relational Networks

• Micro - secondments: Enable short - term assignments across departments - such as placing an Education staff member in Health’s school health team - to deepen cross - department relationships.
• Connection Forums: Host regular, curated forums where public servants can build relationships and share across silos.
• Permissive Communication Channels: Remove restrictive communication rules and hierarchies that block collaboration.
• AI - Powered Connection Repository: Build a central, AI - enabled database of projects, challenges, and expertise to quickly connect civil servants with shared interests and complementary skills.

Enhancing Time - bound Ad Hoc Collaborative Projects

• Broader Collaboration Scope: Involve more departments and diverse perspectives early - even at the design stage, such as including Agriculture and Transport in a school health project.
• Post - project Relationship Tracking: Make ongoing relationships a measured project outcome, tracking them alongside standard deliverables to sustain networks after projects end.

Strengthening Semi - formal Interdepartmental Clusters

• Strategic Membership and Leadership Support: Select members intentionally and back clusters with strong leadership to foster long - term engagement.
• Internal Network Building: Encourage members to grow similar networks in their own departments, creating organic, extended connections.
• Sensor and Effector Roles: Design clusters to both surface issues (sensors) and mobilize action (effectors) within the organization.
• Links to Formal Systems: Connect clusters purposefully to formal government structures, providing support and resources without excessive oversight or bureaucracy.

Optimizing Formally Constituted Transversal Entities

• Between - Meeting Collaboration: Foster active work and communication between formal meetings to avoid slow progress.
• Outcome Accountability: Keep these entities focused on tangible results, action, and impact - not just process and discussion.
• Multi - Architecture Integration: Ensure formal bodies actively connect with informal networks, ad - hoc projects, and semi - formal clusters for a cohesive, coordinated approach across all models.

Old and New Tools to Support Connection

Spending meaningful time together remains the most effective tool for building strong connections.

Many tools now expand the possibilities for collaboration between government and people. Of these, digital platforms and deeper citizen participation are particularly promising.

Digital platforms enable large-scale horizontal connections, as seen in Kenya’s Huduma centers, which achieve over 90% satisfaction by digitally integrating government services. Leading governments also use AI to identify collaboration opportunities and match expertise across departments, boosting the reach and effectiveness of human networks.

Crucially, modern horizontal architecture should include citizens as active participants, not just recipients. Brazil’s participatory budgeting and Rwanda’s performance contracts show how involving the public strengthens connections between government and communities, improving both outcomes and trust.

This citizen-centered approach enhances service relevance and builds the legitimacy needed for sustainable, collaborative governance.

Things Get Better Together

Building progress is a collective effort, requiring both purposeful strategies for improvement and deliberate approaches to collaboration. While governments often focus on setting goals and designing better policies, they less frequently plan for the connections that make these goals achievable.

The opportunity is to prioritize the "architecture of connection," making it a central, strategic concern. By intentionally designing how informal networks, ad hoc projects, semi-formal forums, and formal entities interact, public services can better mirror and respond to the complex, integrated needs of citizens and communities.

Conclusion

To address the gap between citizens’ horizontal lives and the government’s vertical structure, intentional design of collaborative networks is essential. By cultivating the necessary enabling conditions and substrate, diverse forms of connecting architecture can be established and grown.

With these connections, governments can better align their services with the integrated realities of their communities.

This approach delivers concrete benefits: more responsive services, improved collaboration across departments, greater knowledge sharing, increased efficiency, stronger innovation, resilience, trust and more.

Ultimately, intentional support for horizontal networks is vital for effective and sustainable public service delivery.