Complexity as a Creative Force in Design Variegation, Heterogeneity, Diversity

Abstract

This paper describes an experimental project that attempts to use complexity as a creative and vital force within the design process. The project seeks to release architecture from its conventional role as a static urban backdrop and to transform it into a vital, dynamic, and active participant within cities. The project, entitled “Energy Farm”, was instigated by the 2005 International Open Design Competition for a “Performing Arts Island” located within the Han River in Seoul, Korea. Through the exploration of the site and program elements as an interacting matrix of fields, forces, and flows (energy, program, water flow, infrastructure, etc.), our proposal emerged as a variegated landscape marked by its capacities to produce its own energy, interweave heterogeneous threads of structure and program, and instigate a diverse set of scenarios in which physical and virtual realms coalesce. Architecture, in its unique capacity to bridge these realms, can release the rich computation potential of complexity into the physical realm. Within this scenario, architecture becomes a creative and vital agent for productive change with profound social, political, and ecological implications.