Weeknotes #3: Nature of Order Reading Seminar — 22 October 2020
Notes on the Nature of Order Seminar series — part of the Building Beauty Post-Graduate Diploma in Architecture. A weekly running reflection for myself, for friends, and for those curious about Christopher Alexander’s work and its importance in shaping a healthy, living world.
- This week completes an interpretation of the 15 properties started in Weeknotes #2
October 22, 2020. It is the 3rd seminar, in which:
- We read the Nature of Order, pages 195–298, covering the last seven of the Fifteen Fundamental Properties, and the role of the properties in nature
- Narendra leads a discussion of man-made artifacts and their expression of these properties
- We show discuss human-built or made objects as well as natural environments and ‘life’ through the properties
- We touch on how much more there is to life than what is expressed in the 15 properties
The Fifteen Fundamental Properties (final 7)
The first eight of the Fifteen properties are, 1. Levels of Scale, 2. Strong Centers, 3. Boundaries, 4. Alternating Repetition, 5. Positive Space, 6. Good Shape, 7. Local Symmetries, and 8. Deep Interlock and Ambiguity. Alexander tells us that “the precise number fifteen is not significant (p.242)” but that the order of magnitude feels right. After 20 years of working on them — there are not five, and there are not a hundred, but about fifteen of these properties.
This means that in the theory of centers — the idea that life can emerge from the structure of space through the interaction of overlapping, interlocking, and intertwined centers it is composed of— there are only about fifteen ways those centers can relate to one another, can work together, to create living structure.
Let us look at the last seven. Somehow, in contrast with the first eight, these later properties feel more primal and elemental in their scope; it feels like these properties describe the result of systems of forces working and shaping space, inexorably, inevitably…
#9. Contrast
Without differentiation there is no form, there would be no matter from the void. This is the spirit in which the property is presented: it’s a matter of functional clarity first and foremost. A differentiation that enhances, unifies, and marks the whole.
In seminar, Narendra presented the example of the Dutchman’s pipe flower, both the flower itself and his drawing. It’s a natural object that exemplifies a number of qualities, one of course is contrast.
What’s interesting, in this example, is not that the flower has contrast, but rather what contrast does for the flower. A vivid and almost electric power is generated by the white tracer forms, pulling energy and attention to the stigma. The petals themselves are enhanced through contrast, and the literal center of the flower becomes even more intense with the contrast of the variegated petal and the rich dark purity of an inner ring in unbroken purple.
Here, the contrast is also purely a matter of function. It is one visual part of the pipeflower’s complex system for attracting insects and breeding. It’s beautiful because it has evolved to function so well.
In man-made objects, contrast can of course be in color: it can also be worked in form, in texture, in silhouette, in sound.
#10. Gradients
Gradients exist because conditions vary: that is, some fabric of space exists and it is differentiated, it is not a uniform void. Within any section of the larger wholeness, the larger fabric of space, the system of forces at place is differentiated. It is not uniform, so the structures that flow naturally from those forces are also not uniform.
In living structure, gradient or graduated variation, emerges naturally as an adaptive response to the environment. The aspen trees in autumn do not change color and drop their leaves uniformly: each leaf responds to its position and conditions of light, wind, exposure, temperature. Beautiful gradients of color splash across each tree and the entire mountainside.
Here we see two towers, and the difference in power of gradient is striking. I believe the Eiffel Tower draws so much of its life from the gradients laid bare: we can see the centers respond to a system of forces moving from the ground up. Through the entire tower, beautiful centers are formed as structural members vary in size, shape, and length according to their position in the tower and the forces at play. A gradient analysis of The Shard proves much less fruitful — for many reasons it lacks life; the absence of meaningful gradient is a key pillar of its stark and uninviting sterility.
Alexander notes, “A true gradient requires that the morphology of elements — walls , columns, roofs, windows, eaves, openings, doors, stairs — are able to exhibit sustained and gradual change of size and character, as one moves through the environment, or through a building. This requires new forms of making, production, manufacture, which are at present only in their infancy. (p. 209)”
In Gradients, and in Roughness to follow, we find a beautiful look forward. The property does not speak to regress to traditionalism; it is the idea that we must break out of a sterile and mechanical system of production, and advance our building technology so that we create healthy and living structure in the world around us with gradient, with roughness.
#11. Roughness
Roughness allows for adaptation. The idea of the property of roughness can be expressed with the unconcerned abandon of a master craftsman, knowing that variation is inevitable and indeed necessary to create a healthy whole. Roughness means an increase in the life of the whole because we do not sacrifice the life of the strong centers for a rigid and unnecessary precision.
Perhaps most simply we, more naturally, we can think of the way a pumpkin vine produces pumpkins, a mycelium makes a mushroom, or a pear forms from the tree. The appealing life in fruit comes from its overarching order, its wholeness as it is developed to its position in vine or earth or branch; never would we imagine a plant to abandon that natural tendency for life so that every fruit is the same.
When buildings and man-made objects are whole, they exhibit this same sense of roughness — complete and coherent and vivid in their own environment and for their own sake, not that of an imaginary and rigid system of ‘order.’ “The seemingly rough arrangement is more precise because it comes from a much more careful guarding of the essential centers in the design (p. 211).”
The “Bellini” carpet is a force of life because of, not in spite of, its roughness.. Note the white tracework in the outermost minor border, how the corners in the bottom do not line up like the corners in the top. It is this minor roughness which allows that border, that boundary center, to maintain its strength and enliven the centers it contains and the centers that contain it.
I wonder at (in fact I have a speculative long for) how the world would feel if our systems of production could produce modern buildings with this essential and unconcerned character of roughness, if our technology was advanced enough to produce buildings according to their environment…
#12. Echoes
Our natural environments tend to share a guiding feeling because the systems of forces that produce them are the same. No mountain of the Himalayas is identical, yet the same elemental forces shape them. The similarity of environment and process creates echoes.
Man-made objects and built environments feel more alive and whole when they carry these same echoes. Without them, environments are disconnected, sterile, and psychologically confusing. We see the echoes drawn out almost literally in the mushrooms and the tiles above. “The essence of the echoes property lies in the very deepest level of structure (p. 220).”
It is not that echoes come about from surface similarities, the simple copying of motif. Rather, echoes — when they contribute life in how centers relate to each other — occur because they bind centers together based on a relationship of underlying structure or process.
#13. The Void
Like the infinite depth of water, The Void is “the quiet that draws the center’s energy to itself, give it the basis of its strength (p. 224).” Alexander states this property is a psychological necessity for coherent centers, the calm that will alleviate the buzz, the place and the space where a mind can rest as it evaluates or interacts with a center.
It’s not hard to feel a Zen crossover in this property, psychologically but also functionally: without the emptiness of the Void, what use would there be in a bowl? A building?
Of course, the anodyne existence of emptiness does not mean we experience The Void as it exists in the properties — when The Void brings centers to life, it does so because it creates a stillness, a richness, a contrast with the buzz of the rest of the center. It draws the center’s energy into itself.
In the shrine of Kōtoku-in in Kamakura, there is a calm force of life, a power felt throughout the courtyard because of the void surrounding the buddha. Space to wander, space to wonder, a stillness that offsets the intensity of the statue, and brings the entire shrine to life.
This is The Void. It creates a strong force of life in courtyards, piazzas, and religious buildings formed before modern times, where it interacts wonderfully with Positive Space. It is abused and caricatured in modern places and spaces — especially open plan office buildings.
#14. Simplicity & Inner Calm
Simplicity and Inner Calm is a property that speaks to slowness, majesty, quietness. Everything unnecessary removed — when we evaluate the world in terms of a system of centers, it means that there exist no centers that are not themselves supported and supported by the other centers in the world around them.
We can find it on the roof of a barn in the Kathmandu hillside, in the rail of the house’s porch. What exists is what is necessary to bring the whole alive. A more regressive view would consider the blue of the column a crime, would not recognize the simple and understated life that emerges from the gentle blue column with a yellow band at top.
We can see it in a gathering of friends at the beach. Sometimes life needs nothing more than a patch of sand, a few chairs and towels, sunscreen for the children. A cooler of beer. The rest takes care of itself.
It is not a property that speaks to simplicity as opposed to complexity. Complex structures, when whole and coherent, exhibit the property of Simplicity and Inner Calm. We could call this property “Alexander’s Razor” as we evaluate the centers in a structure, its life. Are there centers that don’t contribute? That call attention to themselves needlessly? That weaken the others around them? Their presence indicates a lack of Simplicity and Inner Calm.
Again, it is a progressive perspective: form follows function — form is function in this worldview — but we are building a fundamentally different understanding of the purpose of form. We create form to imbue the world with more life, to try and produce those types of spaces and things that are simple and unconcerned, of their own environment, and have the capacity to create life and feeling in the people who interact with it.
#15. Not Separateness
“It is that quality which comes about from each center, to the degree that it is connected to the whole world (p.231).” Alexander remarks that this property is perhaps the most significant, as it connects each center up and down, recursively, to its surroundings, from the smallest detail to the whole world it is a part of.
Here in Porto the historic downtown carries a strong feeling of Not-Separateness. This area feels as if it is one connected city-substrate, one block of wholeness where lands, buildings, and stone all work together to produce a convivial, curious, and inviting environment.
Not Separateness brings this part of the city to life because there is no ego here. Each lively building, each structure, relates to those around it, just as the city relates to the hills and the river. Some buildings are more grand than others, some in better care and repair, but none shoot to the sky and ask for recognition or attention among their neighbors. Even the beautiful cathedrals, universities, stations with hand-painted azulejo murals carry with them a quiet pride but also the humility to address the structure of wholeness around them on equal terms.
The Properties in Nature
After the properties are introduced and discussed, Alexander presents vivid examples of the properties in nature. He asks how it can be, why it might be, that these same properties that seem to bring structure and object to life are so deeply prevalent in the natural environment…?
Is there perhaps something deeper going on here? At this point, we have a good link between architecture biology. We can find that, objectively (bear with us until next week for this one) there are degrees of feeling that people experience based on the structure of space around them. We have a good argument for how humans are psychologically predisposed to find structure and safety in certain types of form. (See Nikos Salingaros’ on the error of ‘blank slate’ thinking for architecture, here.)
And Alexander wants to push even further. He wants us to recognize that, beyond just psychology, it goes fundamentally further. The same forces that create life in nature are the same forces that we can harness to create real life in our buildings and our objects. It creates a system where the presence of life — or not — is an objective measure of value for the structure of the world. And it is not neutral with respect to architecture. Here is a place I need to spend more time and thought…
Use and Limits of the 15 Properties
In seminar we discussed the role of these properties as we are learning them, and how they are meant to be ‘used.’ What is important in this type of analysis is it can show us some things that are not yet entirely whole, and give us ideas of where we can make things — buildings, art, structure — more whole. But a mechanistic analysis of the presence or absence of properties misses the point. Life springs from the whole, and these properties are the first lenses we have to understand how a system of centers works together to create that life.
We also note that we’re generally discussing good examples of life. And well beyond the 15 Properties, there is a valence of feeling, a character to that life, that can differ between positive examples. Here, we realize that the properties are a first tool, but Alexander doesn’t (and doesn’t claim) to characterize the depth of complexity of life in the wholeness and our interaction with it.
And so far we are just beginning to see centers as the interwoven units that create the fabric of space that Alexander calls the Wholeness. So far we are just beginning to learn to see when centers work together to create life. We have not really grappled with Alexander’s larger play here, the creation of a system that injects value into space, and gives objective criteria that can let us say “this place is really truly better than that place.” In the modern, rational, mechanistic view of the world, it’s a terribly radical idea. And yet, have you ever found that perfect window seat, that lovely bench under a tree, your favorite cafe corner, the armchair where the light hits just so? It’s not so hard to believe that these places might really be more alive.
And that’s week 3 in the books. See you next week.
Thanks to Building Beauty for creating the Nature of Order reading seminar, and keeping it a free and publicly accessible part of the program.
Whether or not you’re a builder, if you feel a spark in the above, I can only recommend you find your way to a personal copy of the Nature of Order. It’s a remarkable work.
