Natural paths of movement emerge through gaps in the blocks imposed by a municipal grid in the town of Tultepec, Mexico. These paths show how the street configuration of medieval cities comes to be defined. The urbanized gradient between the center of town and its outskirts shows the different stages in the emergence of a fully natural town.
For those with strong stomachs, scroll to the south to see some truly horrific modern housing blocks.
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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One Comment
Another example of this is in Robe, Ethiopia- Though it’s difficult to tell there whether the grid was imposed upon a previously existing network of paths, or if those paths have subsequently arisen to supplement the grid.