Two buildings directly across from one another on Burnside Street in Portland, Oregon, presenting very different kinds and degrees of information to pedestrians:

The building on the right offers information about time and aging, individual business activities, entrances, different room volumes inside, and much more. The building on the left has none of that information. Instead it has a series of panels devoid of information beyond color, and following a relentlessly repetitive pattern, but arranged in what the designers hope is an artistically pleasing way. We may or may not prefer the view on the left, over the more “old fashioned” view on the right, based upon our cultivated artistic tastes, our preference for cleanliness, etc. But when it comes to the brain’s hunger for stimulating information about its world, the view on the left offers only superficial and poorly nourishing information.

  • Salingaros, Nikos A., and Michael W. Mehaffy. "Ch 07. Intelligence and the Information Environment" In Design for a Living Planet: Settlement, Science, & the Human Future. Design for a Living Planet: Settlement, Science, & the Human Future. Levellers/Sustasis Press and Vajra Publications, 2015. Digital Library
Michael Mehaffy

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