The Nature of Order, Volume 3: A Vision of a Living World

The book containing the chapter 'Belonging And Not-Belonging'

Extracted from this book

Claims (27)

Anonymous buildings fail in three ways: (1) no individual belonging in private dwellings, (2) no public belonging in the sham public world, and (3) the two worlds are not in contact.
Diagnostic triad that explains the comprehensive failure of modern architecture to support belonging
Belonging cannot, in my view, be created by non-living process.
Central assertion that only living processes generate the emotional reality of belonging
Belonging, although invariably common in traditional towns and villages, is missing in far too much of modern society.
Historical contrast asserting a widespread contemporary deficit
Cities today do not reflect the idiosyncrasies and human characters of people.
States that modern urbanism erases the multitude of differences that constitute our humanity
Design alone cannot accomplish this. It needs a change in the way we make it possible for people to control the world around them.
Argues that spatial quality requires a shift in social process, not just architectural design
Each particle of the city needs to be individual, particular.
A moral and aesthetic imperative for city form rooted in the nature of living tissue
Exquisite feelings are visible in this small world where public and private touch each other everywhere.
Observes that the interlock geometry directly produces visible emotional quality
In a living structure for society, the vital importance of the public room is fundamental.
Elevates the public room to a primary element of any healthy social fabric
It does not have to do with density. It has to do with whether there is a general understanding by people who build and who pay for buildings, that the public space needs to be made usable.
Refutes the density excuse, placing responsibility on shared intention and understanding
Living processes are absolutely necessary in buildings and in towns and in the countryside simply to create belonging, true belonging.
Extends the necessity of living process to all scales of human environment
Much of the emotional misery of the 20th century was caused by the terrible loss of belonging our contemporary processes inflicted on society.
Causal attribution of widespread psychological suffering to the built environment
One of the most frightening aspects of the 20th-century city was its faceless, nameless character.
Emphasizes the psychological terror of anonymity in the built world
The capacity for everyone to enter either one from anywhere — to have both belong-to worlds to hand — is the essence of the structure that living processes will generate in society.
Defines the ultimate spatial outcome of living process: simultaneous access to private sanctuary and public communion
The car ... caused the loss of control and loss of belonging.
Pinpoints the automobile as a primary agent in the destruction of public space and belonging
The focused gathering of human groups in public spaces is a necessary larger level of structure in all nature as vital to the dwelling in our habitat as the mother to the baby.
Posits that collective gathering spaces are a natural law, not a cultural option
The forms of environment we have learned to create in modern times have caused us to lose the sense of true connection to ourselves and our society.
Directly blames the design of modern space for severing self- and social connection
The individuality of every part and every place is a structural characteristic of all living tissue, in leaves and rocks and water, as in human streets and dwellings IF they have their life.
Universality claim: uniqueness at every scale is a hallmark of all living systems
The private or individual space which is created by money, in today's society, is rarely making or fostering belonging.
Distinguishes wealth-driven uniqueness from the true uniqueness born of living process
The public space needs to be made usable, every fifty feet a useful and beautiful place to be, and actually to be the living room of your society.
Prescribes a spatial rhythm for public space to fulfill its social function
The public space of our present-day cities, both legally and metaphorically, no longer belongs to us to any deep extent.
Diagnosis of why modern citizens feel unwell in public environments
The public space, created first as an offshoot from acts of individual occupancy forming private houses, quickly became a thing that many people together cared for and shaped.
Describes the emergent genesis of public space from private acts, not top-down planning
The street is not a thing to drive through, but a series of spaces which are the places where you most want to be.
Redefines the street from a transportation corridor to a sequence of beloved public rooms
The structures needed for our belonging — both private and public — can be generated almost without effort, autonomously, by any truly living process allowed to exist in society.
Optimistic assertion that living process effortlessly brings forth the spatial conditions for belonging
To get it in meaningful fashion, again, as in the Indian village, people need to be in control — in control of their individual space, and in control of the public space.
Reiterates that dual control (private and public) is the mechanism behind successful traditional environments
True belonging — true life — occurs when a penetration of the real into the fabric of the world occurs.
Defines the fundamental mechanism through which authentic connection to place happens
We need a city of public places where we can SEE these differences, where we can become engaged with the multitude of human characters.
Argues that public space must function as a theater for human variety
What matters, above all, is that the people themselves are in control of their environment.
The single most important prerequisite for achieving belonging

Hypotheses (1)

When a system of living processes acts in a human environment, two kinds of structures will appear within reach of every person: a unique private world and an attached public world.
Predictive claim about the automatic spatial output of living process

Neighborhood — ranked by edge-count

Chapters (2)

chapter

Chapter 5: How Living Process Generates
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Chapter 5 of Volume 3 of The Nature of Order, discussing how living process generates positive space and volume on the land through structure-preserving transformations.
Belonging And Not-Belonging
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Chapter 1 of Volume 3, introducing the concepts of belonging and not-belonging in the built environment