[click image to enlarge]
Thanks to alert reader Cailynn for sending this image from one of my favorite cities, Boise, Idaho. At first glance one might ho-hum at a set of bollards that might be considered rather plain, but Cailynn (a student of neuroscience at a local university) correctly points out that they are arranged with a slight narrowing of the pattern between the third and fourth ones; a principal known in urban design as "subliminal indicative asymmetry"; a break in the regularity of evenly-spaced things to alert the observer to the presence of something that may impede their progress or allow egress; yet at a subtle enough level as to not be consciously recognized, so as to not contribute to the sensory overload that can often cause trouble for those new to a complicated (or as Boise has often been called, chaotic) environment.
