Emergent Urbanism

This website explores urban planning and design in a new light, that of complexity science and the phenomenon of emergence. It attempts to show how great cities are the result of individuals building something that is unique to themselves and combine with other individual acts to form a pattern that exists in a greater dimension. With this knowledge we can plan cities that share the complexity of nature and life, and all their qualities.

My name is Mathieu Helie. I am a graduate of the Institut d'Urbanisme de Paris, Universite Pantheon-Sorbonne and Concordia University, a student of urban planning, economics and computer science, and this is my part of the complexity revolution.

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For consulting or any other questions, write me at mhelie@gmail.com.

• Read the principles of emergent urbanism.
• Buy these great books and support emergent urbanism.

The challenge of dense sprawl | Cinderella Architecture | Creating the emergent dimension, or learning from Wikipedia | Complex geometry and structured chaos | Complex geometry and structured chaos part II | The complex grid | Decoding paradise: the emergent form of Mediterranean towns | A demonstration of complexity in London | A demonstration of complexity in New York City | Design, configuration and natural form | The emergence of a sense of place | The emergent dimension, or why New Urbanism is not urbanism | Fake complexity: CCTV Headquarters | Fake complexity: Frank Gehry | Fake complexity: mixed use development | The geometry of nowhere | The journey to emergence | The marketplace city | The mathematical definition of a city | The movement economies | Producing land with nested markets | Regional complexity and local community