Complex Order
By benmoore
After reviewing, peril, prospect, refuge, and enticement, there is one more pleasurable architectural characteristic highlighted in Winifred Gallagher's House Thinking. Grant Hildebrand called it "complex order."
Complex order explains why older suburbs have more charm than new subdivisions:
"This is because our big brains love to take in lots of information from the world and sort it according to fine distinctions. Thus we're bored by overly homogenous places, such as cookie-cutter housing tracts... We feel best in places that, like the venerable suburb and the tidy room that has some books, pillows, and everyday things scattered about, balance variety and stability."
Compare another tract housing shot to the famed Lombard Street:
Too little complexity makes the the tract housing photos look drab, whereas the shot of Lombard Street with its variety of angles makes for much better eye candy.
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EmilyJayne
Ha. That's a very easy one. The pics you use for your example are great to reply to... Meaning the above photo lacks any (and I mean ANY) color and life. The older has plantings, not to mention a gorgeous landscape of mountains behind. I think nature has a great deal to do with why one feels a sense of belonging. I happen to be an avid gardner, so perhaps I'm coming at it from a certain point of view. These new developments going up are so very cookie cutter, but they look more like an abandoned graveyard of roofs poking up in a line.
Oo. Too depressing.
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