12 Morphological invariants that are likely to appear in an engineering structure generated by living process

A building is an arrangement of several thousands of tons of concrete, stone, brick, steel and glass, with smaller amounts of other materials thrown in. The pattern of this solid matter, as it is distributed in space, is rarely mentioned. Yet it is this pattern of solid and void, in three dimensions, which governs everything of importance in a building, everything substantial.
When living processes guide the formation of a building structure, these are the features which will settle out. The relations of mass to space: Each is positive to the other: the spaces will be formed as good shapes by the material, and the material will be formed as good shapes by the space. The creation of the two interleaved patterns, one of matter, one of space, each coherent in its own right, the material coherent according to its structural laws, the space coherent according to human laws, when successful becomes a triumph of imagination, a kind of fugue in space.
Generally it does not work when the members are too thin, because that has a destructive effect on the space. So the centers of the material have to be made rather big and rather solid — and that usually means they must be far apart. Yet to form significant human space they have to be close together, to form the spaces themselves. The creation of a meaningful structure lies in the resolution of these opposites.
It is extraordinary how the pure pattern of space, substance, and volume, when conceived as a structure of centers in abstract geometric terms, without detailed analysis of forces, so naturally becomes a coherent engineering structure. The fundamental process, because of the geometric structure it induces, helps to create a beautiful and living engineering structure.
What effect does the pattern of three-dimensional solid and void have on human life? It is only when surrounded, all around, by such living structure that we begin to feel ourselves whole. The reason why one feels sanctified in Chartres is that this structure around us, together with the space, are perfectly as one and thus relate themselves not only to the body, but even to the soul. Without this structural pattern, it is nearly impossible for deep living structure in a building to occur.

#book/The Nature of Order/3 A Vision of a Living World/6 Positive space in engineering structure and geometry#