Abstract
This essay considers the interaction of architectural theory and recent scientific developments in complexity theory and the study of self-organising systems, beginning with a reading of biologist Stuart Kauffman's popular exposition of his own work and that of others in the field in At Home in the Universe: The Search for the Laws of Self-Organization and Complexity . Kauffman's book is seen to rehearse an undertheorised notion of a cosmic 'home' newly identified for humanity by science, arguing that evolutionary processes - including the origin of life itself - previously thought to be unimaginably unlikely or arbitrary are now understood as probable effects of the spontaneous emergence of order out of chaos. Significantly, Kauffman repeatedly extends his project into other aspects of human endeavour, including technology and society. Making no claims regarding the science itself, this essay argues that the nostalgia for the 'home' made explicit in Kauffman's work renders such attempts at generalising complexity theory, potentially problematic. Kauffman, for example, indulges in a project of uncritical domestication which has its own history within architectural discourse, including Christopher Alexander's attempts to translate earlier discourse on self-organising systems into a comparably restorative architectural formula in the face of an increasingly technologised- and 'complex'- lifeworld. The figure of the cybernetic black box and a fictional 'black cloud' - both contemporaneous with modernist efforts to unite architecture and science- are introduced as complementary materialisations of fully integrated 'communicative organisms' postulated by cybernetics against a background of noise, confusion, and information overload. The essay concludes by proposing that these latter effects be theorised as constitutively unassimilable into any and all universalising gestures of integration and domestication, thereby holding architecture open to the full implications of discourses outside of itself, and vice versa.
Sign-in/Register to access full text options 
Talk to us
Join us for a 30 min session where you can share your feedback and ask us any queries you have
Schedule a callDisclaimer: All third-party content on this website/platform is and will remain the property of their respective owners and is provided on "as is" basis without any warranties, express or implied. Use of third-party content does not indicate any affiliation, sponsorship with or endorsement by them. Any references to third-party content is to identify the corresponding services and shall be considered fair use under The CopyrightLaw.
