Embracing Complexity in Design

The project will research the relationship between art and the emerging science of complex systems: “The new science of complex systems will be at the heart of the future of the Worldwide Knowledge Society. It is providing radical new ways of understanding the physical, biological, ecological, and social universe. Complex Systems are ambiguously situated in turbulent, unstable, and changing environments. They evolve and adapt through internal and external dynamic interactions. They are value-laden multi-level multi-component systems of systems and they are not predictable in a conventional scientific sense;” (European Commission (ONCE-CS project Living Roadmap for Complex Systems.

Our previous Designing for the 21st Century research cluster established four areas in which design and complexity interact (i) many designed systems are complex and the science of complex systems is required to understand their behaviour; (ii) many design processes are complex, including methods of fabrication, materials, and supply chains: (iii) the environment of design is complex, including regulation, and socio-economic forces such as markets and fashion; and (iv) the design process itself forms a complex human system involving the creation and communication of voluminous heterogeneous information mediated by new ICT technologies enabling people to interact and collaborate locally and globally in completely new ways. In this context the new project will address 5 research questions.

< back