Complexity Theory and Complex Systems can be boiled down to a set of parts and the connections between these parts. Structure, order, and patterns can all be used to describe how elements and relations interact with one another to create a system. The effectiveness of systems is evident in their organization. What is even more remarkable is the component of self-organization in the makeup of a system. In Meadows’ book, Thinking in Systems, there is a section dedicated to the self-organizing nature of systems. Meadows attributes the self-organization to the resilience of a system. As found in the resilience model, systems are dynamic but can follow certain patterns, and when one pattern no longer suites the systems needs, evolution of the system generates a new pattern and keeps it alive. Self-organization is a broader category that includes a system’s power to add, change, or evolve its own structure. Survival is the ultimate goal of a system, and self-organization is a key factor in making this possible.
Meadows goes over examples of how biological systems and economies display these self-organizational skills, but how can this same idea be applied to architecture? Le Corbusier opens Towards a New Architecture with a description of “The Architect” that connects to the simple essence of systems. More specifically, how the architect, “gives us a measure of an order which we feel to be in accordance with that of our world” (Corbusier, 7). This “order” could be visual geometries, relationships between cities and environments, and all of the many different scales architectural order reaches. Our world is made up of different systems which can have the characteristic of non-linearity. An example of this non-linearity is the growth of a city effecting it’s surrounding environment in a way that was not originally fathomed. Unpredictable outcomes of a system display just how non-linear getting from one point to the next can be in these complex makeups. Complex adaptive systems include this fundamental characteristic, along with self-organization and resilience, because although they are complex, they have simple rules.
Going beyond the perception of order that architecture creates, there is the possibility of broadly analyzing architecture as a complex system. The topic could be furthered explored in a lengthier article, however, taking a glance at a few of the key components of a complex system forms the semblance of an argument that architecture itself is a complex system. Systems have a hierarchical structure, and because they are multidimensional there are many elements on different scales affecting each other. Architecture has this same structure in that the social, political, religious, economic, and environmental connotations of architecture can have an equal effect on structure, design, and planning. Connectivity is also important in complex systems regarding how things flow in networks. Relations between these different aspects of architecture leads to the evolution of building from a physical and ideological standpoint.
Le Corbusier’s standpoint on architecture as a machine is well-known, but it is also evident in his writing that systematic order is not devoid of creativity and beauty. It seems counter-intuitive to apply complex systems to something that is also a “pure creation of spirit” but it is in that order that there is this “sense of beauty” (Corbusier 7).
Works Cited:
- Le, Corbusier. Towards a New Architecture. New York: Dover Publications, 1986. Print.
- Meadows, Donella H. Thinking In Systems : a Primer. London; Sterling, VA :Earthscan, 2009. Print.
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