From the point of view of relationshps which appears in the design, it is more useful to call the kitchen sink a “center” than a whole. If I call it a whole, it then exists in my mind as an isolated object. But if I call it a center, it already tells me something extra; it creates a sense, in my mind, of the way the sink is going to work in the kitchen […] It makes the sink feel more like a thing which radiates out, extends beyon its own boundaries, and takes its part in the kitchen as a whole.
This is from Christopher Alexander’s ideas of centers.