Complexity and architecture

By intending to investigate structural complexity in non- standard forms, this PhD thesis is addressing the term “complexity”, contextualised within the present possibilities posed by the digital technological developments. More specifically, the idea of “complexity”

observed in architecture was first established by Robert Venturi, whose opinion was referring to the amount of richness, concerning the

experience and interpretation of vitality, giving a rather functionalistic extension towards complexity in architecture. He attributes complexity to the idea of diversity and sophistication as the result of the program, which developed thus the so-called complex building¹¹.

However, complexity rather seeks to unravel a more contemporary point of view, inscribed within the context of computation (or computational architecture) and specifically it has an important reference to complexity theory and to computational complexity theory.

Generally, when referring to the term “complexity”, it is an attempt to “characterise something with many parts where those parts interact with each other in multiple ways”¹². Thus, it is something, which in other words seems to perform a complicated procedure or to be intricate. Yet mostly, it refers to a set of parts or elements and, thus, a “system”, a closed unity, where those parts are interrelated only with each other or interconnected¹³. We may encounter several paradigms of complex systems, such as the tropical rainforest, but to what it may concern computation, it can be very commonly linked with the complex systems theory, or also an explanation addressed also by complexity theory. Complexity therefore and complexity theories may also be linked together with the concepts of chaos theory¹⁴. Chaos theories

11 Venturi R., (1977), p. 20

12 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Complexity

13 Holland J. H., (2014), “Complexity: A Very Short Introduction, Oxford University Press, Jul 15, 2014

14 Chaos theory see appendix.

are an example of a complex system theory, perceived seemingly to be extremely difficult to control and “chaotic”, but on the contrary, it is driven by specific rules between in its correlations, such as mathematics and statistics. Apparently, the term complexity, although it appears to function randomly, it is guided by specific rules that give potential emergence and unpredictability and thus several forms of complexity¹⁵ can be noted.

The importance of those concepts may be observed in the extensive analysis implemented on the evolution of thought, philosophy, and science. Complexity theories, and in turn chaos theories have managed to be the key interpretational functioning system, that abandons the prevailing linear cause-effect and draws

15 One of the problems on engaging with complexity issues is to formalize the distinction between the large number of elements included in a system and in some cases large, but smaller in number relationships between the correlated elements where existing constraints are able to minimize the element autonomy and create clusters of uniform and interacted relationships among them. These observed phenomena could be perceived, at least in very preliminary stage, as a differentiation between two main distinctive categories, the “disorganized complexity” and the ‘organized complexity’. To elaborate further, “disorganized complexity”, occurs when in the system exist a very large number of elements, that can be up to a million or perhaps even more elements. This innumerous amount of elements may be perceived as randomly distributed, but it is governed by rules, using probability and statistics. “Organized complexity”, on the other hand, extends its definition to nothing else than to non-random and correlated relationships between the system’s elements. This differentiated system is composed by interconnected and related between them elements that are able to interact, being as an autonomous system, with other outer and similar systems. This autonomous system carries/ includes/ creates elements that do not generate properties individually, but mutually manifest to the system coordinated properties, as to suggest that this type of “organized complexity” emerges by itself, without being dictated or guided by some sort of outer force. This, of course, may draw links to the ongoing discussion about “matter and form” and how they interrelated with each other, functioning at the same time as complex systems as well. A helpful way in understanding the properties of an “organized complexity” can be by simulation through the aid of computation.

connections with the notion of non-linearity.¹⁶ This statement is also displayed in the following statement by Manuel De Landa on the abandonment of the classical linear models: “The linear cause-and- effect metaphor of organisation as a machine, the Newtonian/Cartesian perspective, has supported the development of modern systems and practices. As this paradigm has reached its limits, chaos and complexity theory has been guiding the evolution of contemporary thought and practice. This theory of nonlinear systems dynamics spread through the physical sciences as, increasingly, newly discovered phenomena could not be explained or predicted by linear models.”¹⁷ This actually may unravel the importance that a complex system exhibits, placing it as something unique and with a lot potentiality of the direction and development of several scientific investigations and with many applications existing in various fields such as mathematics, physics, chemistry, meteorology, biology, economy, computation, cosmology and system engineering. In other words, we may observe a system that from a certain point cannot be explained by linear translations, but instead in under a self-order of nonlinear multiplicity, exhibiting an emergent and holistic dimension and having at the same time unpredictable behaviour with a shuttle change in the inner organisation of the system.

16 De Landa, M. (2004), “Material Complexity” in Leach N., Turnhill D. & Williams C, “Digital Tectonics”, University of Bath, UK.

17 Brodnick, Robert J., and Krafft, Larry J.,(1997), Chaos and Complexity Theory: Implications For Research and Planning in Higher Education. Contributed Paper for Association for Institutional Research 37th Annual Forum, May 1997, p. 3.

Nevertheless, to what it may concern contemporary architecture (computational architecture), complexity and chaos theories, as mentioned above, changed the way that 3-dimensional architectural objects were interpreted and perceived. It was, thus, an alternative way of pushing the limits of the Euclidean/Newtonian design perspective, as elaborated by Brodnick, Robert J., and Krafft, Larry J, and therefore, many of the geometric and mathematical notions of complexity were a means of high significance. Through these new discoveries, from a Newtonian physics analysis to Quantum theory of the world and with the appearance of n-dimensional systems, splines instead of curves and integral calculus, the analysis of the architectural form was re-stated with a new alternative geometrical system. Form and design are now generated under the co-existence of a relational system and rules that define it, being not singular and static, nut multiple and dynamical. Moreover, self-organisation, as part of a complex system and a key concept, plays another role in the design, trying to give an explanation to the inner organisation, with concepts such as inner dynamics and constant evolution. ¹⁸

However, architecture is being on the verge of a design “shift”, transforming the classical space of understanding, but viewing space as active and constant. “For the point of architecture, design can be seen as not the design of architectural components, but the design of the general principles that generate and re-generate these components and construct their interrelations. Thus, the

18 Karabaj K, (2006), “An Approach to Architectural Form through the Complexity Theories”, ARCH 527, p. 7.

transformation of architectural space, or with a more pretentious claim, the paradigm shift in architecture have been a debate that had begun in the turn of the century with avant-garde modern and nourished with the complexity theories flowingly.”¹⁹

Thus, complexity theories have flourished the appearance of a different perspective on architecture, coming back also to Greg Lynn’s point, of a form interpreted as an animate form, embedded in an active context of vectors and forces, as mentioned in the Chapter previously.

All these new revolutionary ideas that transform the idea of form geometrical analysis in architecture, such as the explanation of the geometrical system through non-linear dynamics, the appearance of structural complexity and the establishment of the non-standard architectural object, are intended to be developed thoroughly in the next Chapters.

2.4. From Nonlinear Dynamics to a Dynamical