Inventory of Centers
Start making sense of a system by listing the centers, or parts, that make it up.
As we define the scope of the system we’re concerned with—Start With Universe—the parts of the system, or centers, will become obvious to us. This pattern talks about how we can start capturing that information for ourselves and others.
Any complex systems is made up of many more parts, or centers, than we can keep straight in our minds.
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Any system is made of parts, and different groups of people use different words to refer to those parts. Many systems theorists use the word “element,” while others use “object.” In this book, I’m using the term used by Christopher Alexander in his work: center. By using “center,” I’m hoping it helps emphasize their function rather than their thingness as centers are fundamentally dynamic and not static.
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How do you identify centers? To use a simple example, if you want to rearrange a room to make it more functional, you quickly see that each piece of furniture is a center, the room itself, any windows, doors, closets, and so on are all parts of the room that you need to work with. It may be that other areas of your house will also become centers. If you’re considering, for example, changing a room from a craft room to a guest bedroom, you may need to consider where the crafting activity will be moved, or whether it will stay in the room and be quickly tucked away when guests come.
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In a system that is a bit less familiar than your home, you may need to really think about what all the centers are and write them down in an inventory. What are the relevant parts that need to be considered? What is the larger context, and should that be included? Are there centers that consist of groups of other centers? For example, you may really like a particular arrangement of a chair, light and table that work together as a great reading space. That should be considered a center as well as the centers that make it up (i.e. the chair, light and table).
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Remember that centers are not just things. Centers are always made of smaller centers, and they are always part of larger centers. A chair is a system made up of centers that include its structural elements, cushions, fabrics, colors and textures. In turn, a chair can be part of a reading space, which can be part of a rich living room space, and so on.
Therefore:
To make sense of a system, start by creating an inventory of the centers that make up the system.
When creating the inventory, you may want to take notes on how the centers are related to other centers. That information will be useful when you create the Relationship Map