In-Between and Through: Architecture and Complexity

Abstract

This paper draws on current research on complexity and design process in architecture and offers a proposal for how architects might bring complex thought to bear on the understanding of design process as a complex system, to understand architecture as a way of organizing events, and of organizing interaction. Our intention is to explore the hypothesis that the basic characteristics of complex systems – emergence, nonlinearity, self-organization, hologramaticity, and so forth – can function as effective tools for conceptualization that can usefully extend the understanding of the way architects think and act throughout the design process. To illustrate the discussions, we show how architects might bring complex thought inside a transdisciplinary design process by using models such as software engineering diagrams, and three-dimensional modeling network environments such as media to integrate, connect and ‘trans–act’.