15 Structure-preserving unfolding of the four-fold pattern of yellow, green, gray, and red
What is different about the process depicted here is that each of these processes goes forward in the context of the whole and contributes to the whole. Each is done, as far as possible, to make a maximum contribution to the life of the whole. The next buildings to be built are placed to make the extension of the pedestrian space possible, placed to make the green space as positive as it can be made, made to allow modest penetration by cars to somewhere near the buildings.
But the aim is always to make the whole better, to make it come closer to the ideal completed neighborhood in which pedestrian space, gardens, buildings, and small spurs of roads and parking remain in harmony, and provide a continuous world of movement for pedestrians, while also allowing each building its own freedom and sway over its immediate domain.
Further, there are necessary relations between the swaths of different color. Yellow, for example, must be shaped by gray around it: that means that good pedestrian space, which is positive, arises only when it is shaped, as a volume of space, by building fronts. So that the yellow space is positive it must be largely surrounded by gray. The green must be distributed in areas which form useful and generous rectangles that also have a positive and living character. Red (roads) must come close enough to buildings, so that people do not feel it inconvenient. On the other hand, people also do not want to live too close to parking lots or vehicles. The yellow forms the hull, the red is more rambling, fitting in where it can. The blobs of red must not be too big — more than three or four cars in one place is already too big.
What do we observe in the resulting pattern? It repeats endlessly, but never repeats exactly. The rules are so complex that they create a dynamic and everlastingly interesting and complex response, and unpredictable, syncopated, organic structures.
To reach a state in which each part is full of life and coherent in itself demands a holistic eye and a syncopated, irregular treatment. It is fascinating to see the unfolding process creating such a syncopated structure.
#book/The Nature of Order/3 A Vision of a Living World/9 The reconstruction of an urban neighborhood#