IaaC blog

The theories of Salingaros, Alexander, as well as Finite Element Analysis all use a similar method of taking a complex system or problem, breaking it up into solvable/manageable pieces, and then reassembling based upon a set of rules. This paper analyzes these three systems with respect to understanding complex systems.

Understanding Complex Systems

fractal-city.pdf

Here you can find the pdf.

Forwarding:

Returning to the back time seeing how the universe had been created and all those stars and planets in the universe those are spinning around beside all those complexity that they have, we still can see human beings are on earth in that critic situation we simply can observe that every moving thing which it is a human or non-human looks like they have a source or a base that they bring their codes or commands from it, it’s like a DNA or a script for the process that they should do or have.

I think that if we started search from the smallest part (very private) or from the biggest part (very public), we could see that every unit has its own DNA. So if we think about it the DNA of architecture may be is a human or the condition that human are in, and going further for Islamic art and architecture were very affected by Islamic population and which they were affected too by Islamic religion. And the whole Islam is return to the holy book (Qoraan) which I consider it as a primary DNA of Islamic art and architecture, and the climate and traditional condition that Muslims used to have are secondary DNA.In the holy book there is no certain dimension or shape for a form or any indicating things about what the Muslims should do about the art and architecture, but it shows some facts and some rule how those humans should behave with each other and with boundaries and with the nature that God gave to them, which they are gradually turned to be certain shape and certain form for art and architecture and Islamic urbanism during the Islamic governing at their times.But why we can’t see what Islam’s used to create before now? That was because the secondary DNA which is the way of living and treating that used to be found before the domination of globalization and new lifestyle that it is available now.   

How did the Muslim Empire establish itself so rapidly?

The rapid success and durability of the Islamic Empire rests in part on the swift development of a monumental Islamic art. The Muslims took over large urbanized societies and a rich legacy of intact artistic traditions. The first conquests, Byzantium and Persia, vyed for territory in Saudi Arabia, but instead, were defeated by the Arabs and formed the core of their Empire. Alexander the Great conquered these regions 800 years earlier. Subjugation to Greece unified them under the artistic traditions of Classical Greece. The Roman Empire created yet another cultural layer. This collective inheritance did much to unify the early Islamic kingdom.

Some example on the main DNA code: 

           Those are some sample codes that Islamic people used to take it out from the holy book and consider it as a rule to rule the city from very public to very private spaces. ·          (No harm and not to be harmed) those urban uses that are not suitable or make harm to people or environment should be removed to placed in another distance from city or the neighborhoods. And there was certain way to measure this harm and deal with it.·         (needs come first) so it shows what is the emergent use for the place like marketing is important and daily so every neighborhood should have it in a close distance rather than an administrational place as an example.·         (Having similarity) having similarity between land uses for example all the carpenters may be in certain place that every people can go and see all the product and also they don’t harm each other as pollution and infrastructure.·         (Having privacy) that mean not to harm any privacy in any level especially view that should not be any private plaices of a house for example not to be seen by any others, but they didn’t have sound problem because the planning was inward looking plan.·

         (Vertical constructing) they were allowed to built vertical building if it’s blocking sun and wind from its neighbor, but without the intention of harming, this one has been used when they wanted to build a Minatare.·

         (Respecting the use of other land use) that used especially for the use of public spaces and renting building·

         (Streets wide and section) the width should be as much as the sun could not full fill the street and for the heights any cantilever should be after the height of 7 arms (3.5) which is the height of a camel with a very height cargo, and they used that for the width also because it’s enough for to camel and to person to move toward each other without crashing.·

         (The authority of using courts) this authority is returning for the owner himself, that can use this open space as much as he want and at the way he want. 

Why the patterns are so complicated and look like that its take a long time to be done?

               They used to use a contract between the land lord and the workers that says these worker need to be have their lunch and dinner during the working time and this was because there is a text in the holy book says that you have to take a good care of your visitors so all the workers used to take a good time working on a very small details so as to being there as long time as it possible so as to have as much as possible meal from the land owner.    

 geometric theme:

This kind of geometric theme in architecture gracefully translates into smaller scale ornamentation on later Islamic buildings of the 10th -14th centuries, and echoes the theme of unity in multiplicity. Arabic embellishment is “qualitiative - not purely quantitative… [and its geometry] has a contemplative aspect. It is the art of combining the multiple and the diverse with unity.

Islamic Decorative art: influences from Arabic language and writing

Another important influence on Islamic art is the writing of Arabic language. The Qu’ran is viewed as the true and final revelation of God through the Prophet. Thus, daily Muslim life vibrates with it’s sacred formulae, and the arrival of literacy designates a huge shift in Arabic culture. [note 18] As a key element in Islamic art, writing in particular, influenced decoration and pattern. The sacred word of the Qu’ran evolved into both the content and form of Islamic patterns, issuing arabesques and complex, repeating crystalline forms. “Writing not only became an integral part of the decoration of a building,… but also indicated its purpose. Calligraphy spread to works other than the Qu’ran and was considered the greatest art

this is the full essay in PDF:

islamic-pattern.pdf

In this small exercise I will try to approach a part of the book “The origins of order” of Stuart A. Kauffman with two perspectives in mind. The first it would be to comprehend and summarize the content of the essay by the meanings it includes. In parallel I will try to see how much this content is “compatible” to the space of the strategic design and the understanding of the city.

 You can download the essay here and the original part of the book in which the exersize was based on there (ersilia site)

As Einstein I believe in a unify theory, I believe that there is an explanation behind existence that is not even so far for our understanding.
Mi point of view is simply based on the idea that if there is some kind of god making rules for our existence should not be so intentional as to say something like there are Ten Commandments. Why not eleven or twelve?

I believe that the world as we know it is a complex interaction of just one unique element among time, time that at the human scale or human perception seems too much.
I have read Heidegger so to understand the moments beyond existence, from dawn till dark.  Moments where time is not there and where understanding seems to be behind semantics and logics of language but not in the math’s field.
What I want to point out with this is, is that it seems when you explore this non time world the explanation of the “normal” existence is closer to our hands. It seems so close that as Hawking says in a couple of years we are going to be talking just about philosophy and no more about physics because everything is going to be known.

After this introduction and going back to the essay where we have to talk about this five items related to design in different scales, I was wondering if I believe in an unify theory, and architecture is part of human activities and humans are part of the planet Earth and the planets are part of the solar system and so on, why architecture should not be part of the unify theory?
If you think about it, we are all compose of the same elements describe in the Mendeleyev table and even this elements are composed with same elements combined in different ways. So there is now a days a theory that pulls this idea even further, the String theory.
String theory is an as-yet incomplete mathematical approach to theoretical physics, whose building blocks are one-dimensional extended objects called strings, rather than the zero-dimensional point particles that form the basis for the standard model of particle physics. By replacing the point-like particles with strings, an apparently consistent quantum theory of gravity emerges, which has not been achievable under the standard model. Usually, the term string theory includes a group of related superstring theories and a few related frameworks such as M-theory, which seeks to unite them all.
String theorists have not yet completely described these theories, or determined if or how these theories relate to the physical universe. The elegance and flexibility of the approach, however, and a number of qualitative similarities with more traditional physical models, have led many physicists to suspect that such a connection is possible. In particular, string theory may be a way to “unify” the known natural forces (gravitational, electromagnetic, weak nuclear and strong nuclear) by describing them with the same set of equations, as described in the theory of everything. On the other hand, the models have been criticized for their inability, thus far, to provide any experimentally testable predictions.
Work on string theory is made difficult by the very complex mathematics involved, and the large number of forms that the theories can take depending on the arrangement of space and energy. Thus far, string theory strongly suggests the existence of ten or eleven (in M-theory) spacetime dimensions, as opposed to the usual four (three spatial and one temporal) used in relativity theory; however, the theory can describe universes with four effective (observable) spacetime dimensions by a variety of methods. The theories also appear to describe higher-dimensional objects than strings, called branes. Certain types of string theory have also been shown to be equivalent to certain types of more traditional gauge theory, and it is hoped that research in this direction will lead to new insights on quantum chromodynamics, the fundamental theory of the strong nuclear force.
Wikipedia.

So now that the string theory is defined lets put on trial with the five item of the essay.
Ordered by patterns:
Certainly it is, briefly, the strings have different resonance giving different results. Results respond to a pattern, the pattern is not always the same because the theory is based in statistics results nevertheless they follow a pattern maybe one that not always gives the same result but even the minority results are part of another pattern.
Fractal:
Certainly it is, we can say so because the explanation behind the string theory is done by mathematical equations, maybe this equations are no yet totally define but the only way to understand this phenomena it seems that is by mathematics. So we can define the theory as a fractal theory.
Networked:
Of course it is, the nice thing about existence, in these terms, is that from one single element you can obtain a complex universe. This complexity is reach by the interaction of this unique element that while it gives different results you can obtain infinite combinations resulting on a heterogenic net, defining everything that surrounds us.
Autopoietic:
This is probably the most interesting point about it. The strings are self generate but this concept is generally related with energy and movement. But when you go to the minimum element, how does this element moves? From where does this element obtain its own energy? I think that at this scale just the idea of being part of time gives you the power to move. If you think about it, nothing in the universe is completely still so if you travel the minimum scale the only engine there is time.
Of course the strings are autopoietic not because my last speculation if not because of results, if the chords were not be able to generate themselves there is not possibility that they could create our world, maybe if they had the help of god, but we don’t want to get in that terrain for now.

Open to creative errors:
This is the other interesting point. Has the string theory error? Of course not if we think about the definition error (nothing in existence is an error), but if we think about strange results, yes. As we said before one of the points of the String Theory is that is based on statistics results so the minority results can be call “errors” and this is the interesting thing about it, that strings have this cover chaos idea because is not a straight equation giving you always the same patterns is changing in random ways and the only way to follow it is by comparison on a large number of results.
Concluding the String Theory is not open to creative errors but is involved in a chaos environment.

Now that the theory has been tested in all the fields I wanted to cross it with our own specific architectural world.
Now a days is cool to say that contemporary architecture is following equations, patterns, self behaviors, etc .
But I wanted to conclude that behind the traditional design there are the same laws. As I proved before behind everything there are the same rules because we are part of everything and everything is part of us.
So when a constructor designs a simple house his following the same concepts, but we think that our designs are so cool just because we can identify this math behind them.
Maybe he can not but it doesn’t mean that these rules don’t exist in his world. His house follows patterns on his mind, there is an equation behind his design, he is part of a network (from materials to climate), he is self generating his creation and he is open to chaotic decisions.
So there is an equation behind everything, architects are starting to understand this but this idea is going round humanity since civilization, from ancient Greece to China.
Maybe we should be more humble and don’t think too much of our selves.

This blog is made from Kris account because my password is not working  (Ramon).
 

Architecture’s need to cope with the contemporary requirements and the continual up-growth and evolution of technology and in general of our current lifestyle, set the designing process and techniques on a new trajectory.

In the year of 2000, the end of the 20th century and the beginning of the 21st century, the applications of computer had already changed the design method, especially the technology like the virtual reality, CAD/CAM technology, and Internet.The computer programs became the new tools of the design process; through them we can track down the existent relations, create diagrams (as relations-decoders, and “compressions of information”) in relation with the parameter of time and finally implement them in the form.

The rapid evolution set up new intensions, new theories and design approaches, which declines the concept of architecture, as an individual figure, embodies it as a continuance and as an assemble piece of the total.

 andrea_katsavra1.pdf

Complexity is neither simple order nor a complete mess. It is something between order and chaos, and it grows at the edge of chaos. A complete mess or chaos cannot be represented in any shorter or more compact way than the mess itself. A simple and static order on the contrary can be represented as a short formula. Complexity is different from both of these, and although it often is a result of rather simple formulas too, it includes iterations, the repetition of patterns - taking part of the result of the former round as the input to the next - and most often also adding some randomness to the process. This means that complexity is a result of a process unfolded in time.- BO Gronlund

The interpretation of complexity and stability is observer relative and ‘need’ based. Complex systems may ‘produce’, instead of attain, their very own unique equilibrium or chaos. As an analogous idea, cities can be considered as product of complexities and (if) vice versa. Moreover, it may be interesting to invent new complexities through design strategies rather than basing the designs of cities on ‘old’ observed complexities.

PDF limit-of-complexity-hemant-purohit.pdf

As we have seen through this seminar, a system is complex whenever there is actions or motives (micro) that trigger events or behaviors (macro). In terms of how we can study and further apply concepts such as (a) spontaneous self-organization, (b) fractal structure of order, and (c) autopoiesis, in architectural design or urban planning, we must first be able to grasp such key concepts and to understand their inter-relations.

jolmeda_simple-complexcities.pdf