As Monty Python famously once said, “And now for something completely different”.
This series is my opportunity to explore my curiosity with the principles articulated in Christopher Alexander’s A Pattern Language and his latest work The Nature of Order: An Essay on the Art of Building and The Nature of the Universe. I intend to use the Disney theme parks as my lab to better understand those principles. So please indulge me as I think out loud. You bought the ticket; let’s go for the ride.
Part One. Part Two. Part Three. Part Four.
There is much more to say about centers and how to identify which ones are in play within any given space. The familiar design patterns are combined and “plussed” as Walt Disney would say, to create a higher degree of life. That degree of life is measured by identifying what spaces as acceptable, regrettable or exceptional. To get there I need to understand how centers work.
Christopher Alexander makes five assertions about centers. To illustrate these assertions I will apply them to a place that may be familiar to many who would be reading this:
Imagine you are standing just in front of Blaine Gibson’s Partners statue at Disneyland or the Magic Kingdom?
- Centers arise in space.
We have to start in a specific place. The Partners statue is at the center of a space called the Plaza Hub. Walt wanted a place to provided clear orientation and would allow for the various lands to radiate, like spokes of a wheel. The Plaza Hub was purposefully designed as a distribution point. The Plaza Hub’s function is at the heart of its design.
- Each center is created by a configuration of other centers.
The plaza has a distinct boundary – the curb. That Plaza Hub is embellished with the roughness of the asphalt, which is distinctly different than the brick on the plaza. The statue provides a strong center. The entire space is framed by the gateways to the various lands and the effect of an outdoor room is heightened.
- Each center has a certain life or intensity. For the time being we do not know what this life “is.” But we can see that the life of any one center depends on the life of other centers. This life or intensity is not inherent in the center by itself, but is a function of the whole configuration in which the center occurs.
An open plaza would be boring. Compare the Plaza Hub with traffic circle with minimal amenities or features a solitary piece of art. The element that breaks the Plaza Hub down is the planters. They create a median and the result is two distinct spaces. Along the outer ring are benches where people can rest and, at the same time, animate the space. The inner ring, near the statue, is much more intimate.
- The life or intensity of one center is increased or decreased according to the position and intensity of other nearby centers. Above all, centers become most intense when the centers which they are made of help each other. Exactly what “helping” means in this context remains to be defined.
A great example of the intensity of a space is increased is the special relationship between the Plaza Hub and the castle. It goes well beyond being just open space. On one level you are moving from America in the early 1900s to a medieval fairy tale world just by crossing a street and it doesn’t feel odd at all. In fact, it feels reassuring.
- The centers are the fundamental elements of the wholeness, and the degree of life of any given part of space depends entirely on the presence and structure of the centers there.
The Plaza Hub is a perfect spot to reflect on what Alexander is trying to describe. Quite simply the hub works because everything you see supports everything else you see. The more dominant elements only work because of the subtlest of supporting details. I like to use the Plaza Hub as one a standard to measure other urban spaces.
What I enjoy most is how this central space quietly communicates that you are at the starting point of unlimited opportunities with virtually no signage. The hub speaks an universal language understood by all. To the east is the future and to the west is the frontier. Go north and you enter a world of fantasy and childhood memories. Do you want adventure? It is around here somewhere.
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