Importance: 40%
The Big Idea
One of the major points of Christopher Alexander’s idea of centers from the Nature of Order is that centers can help each other have greater life. He outline fifteen ways in which this can be concretely achieved or observed.
See The Quality of Life in Environments and Objects for a full description of his definition of life which is differentiated from organic life.
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I managed to identity fifteen structural features which appear again and again in things which do have life. These are:
- Levels of Scale
- Strong Centers
- Boundaries
- Alternating Repetition
- Positive Space
- Good Shape
- Local Symmetries
- Deep Interlock and Ambiguity
- Contrast
- Gradients
- Roughness
- Echos
- The Void
- Simplicity and Inner Calm
- Not-Separateness
- Nature of Order, Bk. 1, p. 144
Personal Experience
So far these have been very eye opening. Especially something simple like levels of scale had made it possible to look at some thing and be able to actually think about if the proportions of it are correct or not. I think this is a good get of language to actually be able to talk about the composition of things.
1. Levels of Scale
The idea that centers should have a clean continuum of sizes to help bring life between lager and smaller centers. But the jump in size can’t be too great otherwise the effect is lost and centers will be disjointed. Also centers can’t all be the same or similar size or the loss of effect will happen on the other side with everything feeling cookie cutter and dead. The goal he argues for then is a kind of organic feeling of large to medium to small to extra small centers. In this kind of scale centers can work together in their variety of size to create the quality of life.
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If the jumps in scale are heavy, deliberate, and somewhat evenly spaced through the levels of scale, a thing will often have this powerful life.
- Nature of Order, bk. 1, p. 148
Examples he gives are a vase with 3:1 scale between body, neck and ornament lip. Or a 2:1 scale between parts of a clay horse.
2. Strong Centers
The idea that centers in themselves need to be strong and well defined in order to help other centers be stronger.
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Like levels of scale, the concept of a strong center is recursive; it does not refer to some one grand center, but to the fact that at a great variety of scales, in a thing which is alive, we can feel the presence of a center, and that it is this multiplicity of different centers, at different levels, which engage us.
In many cases there is nevertheless one principle center, the center of the whole composition - the resting place, the middle, the most important place. In other cases which are equally breathtaking, there is no one center, but an undulating series of minor centers …. But even in cases like these we see, at various points, things we can identify as “centers”, forming and making other centers powerful and strong.
- Nature of Order, bk 1., p. 156
3. Boundaries
The idea of centers being separated by boarders, fences, etc. the interesting take is that these boarders too are their own centers and can be through of independently as well as in their role as boundaries.
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Boundaries do the complex work of surrounding, enclosing, separating, and connecting in various different geometric ways, but one vital feature is necessary in order to make the boundary work in any of these ways: the boundary needs to be of the same order of magnitude as the center which is being bounded. If the boundary is very much smaller than the thing being bounded, it can’t do much to hold in or form the center.
- Nature of Order, bk. 1, p. 159
Uses example of lips being roughly similar to the size of the mouth. Basically a good boundary should not be hugely different in size from the thing being bounded.
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Having established the importance of size in a boundary, the next thing that is needed to establish the interlock and connection, coupled with separation, is that the boundary itself is also formed of centers.
- Nature of Order, bk 1., p. 161
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Taken by itself, the boundary rule seems simple. But the rule does not merely refer to the outer boundary of the thing. If we apply the rule repeatedly, it says that every part, at every level, has a boundary which is a thing in its own right. This includes the boundaries themselves. They too have boundaries,
- Nature of Order, bk 1., p. 162
4. Alternating Repetition
This is a specific kind of repetition. Not just the same things being repeated or a ridged pattern but is repetition that has some life and organic variety in it.
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In many cases where a structure gets intense life from repetition the repetition tends to be inexact; it is then the subtle variation which comes with the repetition that is satisfying and life-giving.
- Nature of Order, bk. 1, p. 169
Argues that there is a difference between banal repetition and life giving, satisfying, repetition. The basic difference is that banal repetition makes cookie cutter copies of an element and just lines them up. But good repetition has organic alternation and variety that still repeats.
One way he describes this is as having a primary center that alternates with secondary centers. For example a vine boarder that has leaves on different sides each repetition. Alternation is the key he argues for getting good repetition that increases the quality of life in an area.
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Why is alternating repetition more satisfying, more profound, than simple repetition? One answer lies, once again, in the recursiveness of the rule. For what repeats within a whole is not merely the units. In a whole, the space between units also repeats. And often even the repetition itself repeats. Thus the rule about the repetition applies to all the elements within the whole….
it seems that what is really happening is not repetition, but oscillation. The thing repeats like a wave - one, then the other, then one again, and so on.
- Nature of Order, bk 1., p. 170-171
5. Positive Space
A way of thinking about the actual shape and function of empty space in an area and if that space is well formed and useful (i.e. positive) or if it is a blob and wasted.
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In poor design, in order to give an entity good shape, the background space where it lies sometimes has leftover space, or no shape at all. In the case of living design, there is never any leftover space.
- Nature of Order, bk 1., p. 176
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The definition of positive space is straightforward: every single part of space has positive shape as a center. There are no amorphous meaningless leftovers. Every shape is a strong center, and every space is made up in such a way that it only has strong centers in its space, nothing else besides.
- Nature of Order, bk. 1, p. 176
6. Good Shape
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A good shape is a center which is made up of powerful intense centers, which have good shape themselves.
- Nature of Order, bk. 1., p. 179-181
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The first thing to realize is that in most cases the good shape, no matter how complex, is built up from the simplest elementary figures.
- Nature of Order, bk. 1., p. 181
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I believe the regularity of the simple shapes creates a potential for much more complex systems of cross-relationships in space which can never be attained by the loose organic kinds of shape….
The good shape is an attribute of the whole configuration, not of the parts; but it comes about when the whole is made of parts that are themselves whole in this rather simple geometric sense.
- Nature of Order, bk. 1., p. 182-183
His partial list of what makes up a good shape:
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- High degree of internal symmetries.
- Bilateral symmetry (almost always).
- A well-marked center (not necessarily at the geometric middle).
- The space it creates next to it are also positive (positive space).
- It is very strongly distinct from what surrounds it.
- It is relatively compact (i.e., not very different in overall outline from something between 1:1 and 1:2 - exceptions may go as high as 1:4, but almost never higher).
- It has closure, a feeling of being closed and complete.
- Nature of Order, bk 1., p. 183
Makes the argument that things that have good shape work better as well because if they work well they have to have good shape and be full of more living centers.
7. Local Symmetries
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the existence of a a center and the existence of local symmetry are closely related. Wherever there is local symmetry, there tends to be a center…. However, the exact relation between life and symmetry is muddy. Living things, though often symmetrical, rarely have perfect symmetry. Indeed, perfect symmetry is often a mark of death… Nature of Order, bk 1., p. 186
Makes the argument that ridged and over arching symmetry often fails to take into consideration the functional concerns of a space. While smaller local symmetry within a functional unit, like a room or smaller space help support the life of the centers.
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local symmetries work to create coherence, while overall symmetry rarely does. Nature of Order, bk 1., p. 188
Make the argument that from some empirical studies he did that this perception of life giving local symmetry is an objective aspect of human processing consistent across individuals.
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Why does the presence of many local symmetries in the design make it coherent and memorable? It is as if the symmetrical segments act as a kind of glue - the glue which holds the space together. The more glue there is, the more the space is one, solid, unified, coherent. And notice one more detail: for the glue to be effective, it seems that many of the symmetrical segments must overlap. They are by no means discrete or disjoint.
- Nature of Order, bk. 1, p. 191
Therefore it is both the number of individual local symmetries and also their close overlapping that brings the most life into a design or space creating a “whole.”
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In many cases, a symmetry is used to establish an elementary center. Indeed, an overwhelming majority of centers are locally symmetrical. Each local symmetry establishes a symmetry between two smaller centers to create a larger center.
- Nature of Order, bk. 1, p. 193
8. Deep Interlock and Ambiguity
Sometimes interlock is physically done as a center hooks in with another.
But also Spacial ambiguity can form interlock between centers. Which means that the surrounding area belongs both to the center and its surroundings. His example is a porch that has space that is “outside” but also is a part of the building at the same time creating a connection between the building and its surroundings.
- P. 195 - 197