Complex systems of functional order To see complex systems of functional order as order, and not as chaos, takes understanding. The leaves dropping from the trees in the autumn, the interior of an airplane engine, the entrails of a dissected rabbit, the city desk of a newspaper, all appear to be chaos if they are seen without comprehension. Once they are understood as systems of order, they actually look different. Jane Jacobs, The Death and Life of Great American Cities Order Out of Chaos orderchaos
Scenes of thoroughgoing sameness In places stamped with the monotony and repetition of sameness you move, but in moving you seem to have gotten nowhere. North is the same as south, or east as west. Sometimes north, south, east and west are all alike, as they are when you stand within the grounds of a large project. It takes differences—many differences—cropping up in different directions to keep us oriented. Scenes of thoroughgoing sameness lack these natural announcements of direction and movement, or are scantly furnished with them, and so they are deeply confusing. This is a kind of chaos. Jane Jacobs, The Death and Life of Great American Cities The Image of the CityThe Great Blight of Dullness confusionchaos
Impending destruction In any organized object, extreme compartmentalization and the dissociation of internal elements are the first signs of coming destruction. Christopher Alexander, A City Is Not a Tree chaos
Tendrils of Mess in our Brains An Essay by Sarah Perry www.ribbonfarm.com Show image 0 Show image 1 A ruin and a mess. Watts observes that elements of the natural world – clouds, foam on water, the stars, human beings – are not messes, though the nature of their order remains inscrutable, and Watts doesn’t try to pin down its precise nature. Mess seems to be somehow a property perceptible only in the presence of human artifacts. Is this the result of some kind of aesthetic original sin on the part of humans, uncanny beings severed from the holiness of Nature? I hope not. “Humans are bad” is a boring answer. natureorderchaosaesthetics
The Nine States of Design An Article by Vince Speelman medium.com Nothing Loading None One Some Too Many Incorrect Correct Done uxinterfaces