Emergent Urbanism

Rediscovering Urban Complexity

fractals

The Meaning of Emergent Urbanism, after A New Kind of Science

Submitted by Mathieu Helie on Mon, 05/21/2012 - 16:09, last updated Mon, 05/21/2012 - 22:16

Stephen Wolfram is celebrating the tenth anniversary of the publication of A New Kind of Science, a milestone in the development of complexity science that is more significant than any other for me, as it was reading through that book in 2007 that gave me the motivation and the sense of purpose to begin writing about urbanism and complexity science.

The patterns of place

Submitted by Mathieu Helie on Mon, 02/15/2010 - 15:00, last updated Sun, 11/06/2011 - 00:50

(This article originally appeared in Get Ahead Magazine, for the Get Ahead Festival of independent short films in Brooklyn.)

Principles published

Submitted by Mathieu Helie on Fri, 07/24/2009 - 13:57, last updated Sun, 11/06/2011 - 00:55

The full article conceptualizing the principles of emergent urbanism has been published by the International Journal of Architectural Research volume 3 issue 2. You can download the complete article or read the whole issue.

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.

Don't demolish Detroit

Submitted by Mathieu Helie on Tue, 06/16/2009 - 15:50, last updated Sun, 11/06/2011 - 23:11

The following story about a presidential program to demolish whole neighborhoods of inner city fabric in the United States and turn them back into wilderness has been making the rounds around news blogs.

Having outlined his strategy to Barack Obama during the election campaign, Mr Kildee has now been approached by the US government and a group of charities who want him to apply what he has learnt to the rest of the country.

Organization and intelligence

Submitted by Mathieu Helie on Mon, 06/01/2009 - 09:00, last updated Sun, 11/06/2011 - 00:56

1. Sun Tzu said: The control of a large force
is the same principle as the control of a few men:
it is merely a question of dividing up their numbers.

2. Fighting with a large army under your command
is nowise different from fighting with a small one:
it is merely a question of instituting signs and signals.
- From The Art of War by Sun Tzu

The Fundamentals of Urban Complexity

Submitted by Mathieu Helie on Mon, 05/11/2009 - 10:00, last updated Sun, 11/06/2011 - 01:02

This is part II in an ongoing series of excerpts of an article set to be published this summer in The International Journal of Architectural Research, tentatively titled The Principles of Emergent Urbanism. Click here for part I, The Journey to Emergence.

The complex grid

Submitted by Mathieu Helie on Mon, 02/16/2009 - 19:52, last updated Mon, 04/09/2012 - 15:29

In a medieval-era city the pace of urban growth is slow to a point where the growth of the city is not consciously noticed. Buildings are added sporadically, in random shape and order, as the extremely scarce economic situation makes no other pattern possible. Typically this means that the shape of streets will match the existing natural paths of movement, giving the street network an organic structure that is preserved through successive transformations in the urban fabric.

Regional complexity and local community

Submitted by Mathieu Helie on Tue, 01/06/2009 - 22:09, last updated Sun, 11/06/2011 - 01:00

The housing crisis afflicting Britain has reached such an intolerable level that Prime Minister Gordon Brown is announcing what amounts to a nationalization of planning regulations (report via Planetizen). This comes on the heels of the mayor of Greater London being granted the power to override planning rules of boroughs in order solve the capital's even more outrageous housing situation, as recently as 2007.

The emergent dimension, or why New Urbanism is not urbanism

Submitted by Mathieu Helie on Sun, 09/14/2008 - 21:22, last updated Sun, 04/08/2012 - 23:13

There are two methods for producing fractal geometry. The first method, the decomposition, is the most easily understood. In a decomposition we apply an algorithm that breaks up the geometry of some starting point into several parts. We then re-apply this algorithm to the smaller parts created, obtain many more, even smaller parts, and continue this reiteration until we have reached the complexity limit at the smallest scale of object we can possibly make. This is how an architectural design proceeds because it reflects the way that building proceeds.

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.

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