Emergent Urbanism

Rediscovering Urban Complexity

fractal nesting

The genesis of complex geometry

Submitted by Mathieu Helie on Sun, 06/21/2009 - 23:54, last updated Sat, 02/18/2012 - 12:21

I don't believe that there is a dichotomy between a supposedly modern and traditional architecture. Instead there exist different geometric processes, and while traditionally builders have employed nesting processes in their work, for perhaps no other reason than it came naturally to them, modern builders have restricted themselves to linear geometric processes due to drawing their inspiration from Cartesian science and engineering.

Complex geometry and structured chaos part II

Submitted by Mathieu Helie on Wed, 07/23/2008 - 20:29, last updated Sun, 11/06/2011 - 01:06

Complexity, to employ the definition proposed by Jane Jacobs in the final chapter of Death and Life of Great American Cities, is a juxtaposition of problems. This implies that a complex solution is a juxtaposition of solutions: fractal geometry.

How does the way we build arrive at complex solutions to complex problems without driving the builders to madness? How can we solve problems which exist at every scale in space, but also exist at every scale in time? Let's take a look at St. Paul's Cathedral in the City of London.

Further comment

Please send your comments by email at mthl@mthl.info, or find me on Twitter @mathieuhelie. The commenting system is closed at the moment as no measures can hold back blog spamming bots.

Subscribe to fractal nesting
Loading