Detail, Variety,
and Complexity
Due to the slower pace, people are
more aware of their surroundings as
pedestrians than when driving a car. As
intelligent and curious individuals, we
enjoy an environment with variety, detail,
and complexity. A sidewalk might have a
brick paving edge that changes design at
intersections. A building might have a
mosaic of tile in front of the door that
catches our eye, or a change in appearance
around windows.
Details, variety, and complexity provide
the richness that makes things interesting
for us.
This is not to say that infinite variety
is preferred. Too much variety and our
world becomes hard to understand. A
building may have a palette of three to
five related colors, not twenty unrelated
ones. Landscaping may consist of groupings
of a selected number of species, not
one of everything. Variety is best provided
within an overall cohesive framework