Enlivening and Deadening Green and Gray Spaces: an exploratino of Christopher Alexander's features of living design

Authors

• Isis Brook, Lancaster University; University of Central LancashireFollow

Abstract

The evidence that green spaces in urban areas contribute to human wellbeing is well established and supported by theories such as the evolutionary hypothesis, biophilia, psychological countertransference, and phyto-resonance. The rise in hard landscaping, especially in places that were previously green spaces, would appear to be a very bad development in urban living. However, the architect Christopher Alexander claims that good design can impart an aliveness to objects. This presents the possibility that gray spaces (those dominated by hard landscaping) could also be alive and similarly contribute to human wellbeing. Alexander’s proposed structural features are examined in the context of public spaces. The theory of responsive cohesion is also suggested as a way of explaining the aliveness of a design. Although green spaces have a greater wellbeing benefit than gray spaces, these design ideas counter-intuitively suggest that some green spaces could be so badly designed as to be, in the design sense, dead.