Unresolved Forces - Copyright Richard Fabian 2024

Property 10 — Gradients

Gradients is introduced in The Nature of Order, Book 1[NoO1-01] on page 205.

It’s not often we introduce a gradient directly, but instead we watch it emerge from how we transform the elements. However, you can plan for it if you’re aware of contradictory forces in your context. Rather than make a contrast, bring a gradient to make the transition smoother.

As forms grow in size and detail, some composition elements will seem different and gravitate toward each other while moving away from elements unlike them. In this way, a gradient will form. We see it in cultural groupings with those bridging divides, and how pebbles wash along a beach.

Other times, gradients appear when the whole is large enough to span such a distance that it interacts differently at each extreme of its presence. At one end, the set of values contrasts differently than at the other. The differing forces create tension across the whole centre, and this tension is resolved by creating subdivisions or introducing a gradient.

Steps and stairs, sizes and colours, and gradients of elements are typical of good forms. Sometimes, they are literal gradients, such as in a rising elevation. The elements across a garden form a gradient from the low, rough areas to a higher ground of beauty or elegance. The gradient needs only to be through a space. As you travel through it, some aspect must change.

Consider the gradient-like nature of 112 Entrance transition. Standing in front of a doorway, you are in a public space. As soon as you enter the porch, you are beginning to be inside. Beyond this short-lived gradient, there is another pattern interlocked with it. The hall is even more inviting, and the deeper you venture into the building, the more home-like it feels—an 127 Intimacy gradient. Neither gradient is a sliding scale or gradual slope, but a feeling that grows or shrinks depending on how far removed you are from the outside world.

In organisations with security concerns, you might also encounter the secrecy gradient—a confidence gradient. The further into a building you get, the more locked down it is, and the more sensitive information will be present. Going from the front desk to a manager’s office to their filing cabinet requires progressively deeper acknowledgement of permission and authority.

Gradients can also affect the density of designs. Sometimes, the detail increases because the end requires some differentiation to achieve its goals. Tools often have detailed work ends or handles for this reason, and bones have the same increase in detail at their ends. However, the concentration of detail need not be discrete like in levels of scale. It can slowly change across a dimension, such as the spots and stripes on animals.

Most modern methods find realising good gradients quite demanding. Modular design works best when there are no gradual changes, so natural feeling gradients become expensive and regressive against any value this approach provides. We should not devalue gradients; instead, we should point out how modularity inhibits this property from ever appearing.