Importance: 10%
The Big Idea
Centers is a way of thinking about the physical make up of an area or building posited by Christopher Alexander.
The basic idea is that you can identify a kind of fuzzy zone (which he calls a center) around which there is a certain continuity and harmony around a particular function or structure.
Quote
A local center of activity: a living system. It is a focused entity. Nature of order, bk 1., p. 84
So a kitchen could be a center because it’s where you cook. A neighborhood could be a center because it’s held together by a common road structure, etc.
Centers are seen as smaller parts of the larger whole and are not meant to be thought of in isolation but make clear and identify the relationships that exist between different centers. Like a kitchen and dinning room usually have between each other.
It helps make clear how the world works together.
Also centers are seen as hierarchical. With a group of smaller centers often forming a larger center. Such as many rooms in a house making up the actual house. Therefore centers can function as a way to move up and down levels of complexity within an area as well.
Overall this seems like a very helpful way of understanding and talking about the communities and buildings we live in in a way we can actually start to understand how these communities and spaces function.
What is a Center?
Each one of these entities has, as its defining mark, the fact that it appears to exist as a local center within a larger whole. It is a phenomenon of centeredness in space.
I am not referring at all to a point center like a center of gravity. I use the word center to identify an organized zone of space - that is to say a distinct set of points in space.
When I call the pond a center, the situation changes. I can then recognize the fact that the pond does have existence as a local center of activity: a living system. It is a focused entity. But the fuzziness of its edges are becomes less problematic. The reason is that the pond, as an entity, is focused towards its center. It creates a field of centeredness. But, obviously, this effect falls off.
- Nature of Order, bk 1., p. 84
Centers are not stand alone features but are formed by the configuration of the whole. So in order to define what scale of center to look at you have to first start with a “whole” that is really a center of a larger scale. The larger whole of human experience would be the earth.
If the configuration of the whole changes the centers will shift even if most of the spacial configuration is similar. Meaning that even small changes can create big impacts on an overall system. The while then comes first and centers “settle out” of the whole with its configuration.
In other words centers are “induced” by the composition of the whole.
This is in contrast to the usual perspective that a whole is made up of parts in a simple kind of arithmetic.
- symmetry
- connnectedness
- comvexity
- homogeneity
- boundaries
- sharp change of feature These are all factors that can strengthen the presence of a center