Applying Principles from Complex Adaptive Systems Theory towards Urban Planning Strategies

Sharon Ackerman, PhD Candidate, Spatial Planning

A test case that replaces the design of urban objects with the choreography of urban processes….

Background:

-  Urban Design Background (North American) -  Interested in what Complexity thinking can add to cities (life and resilience!)

-  Try to understand generic processes in CAS -  Translate CAS principles for design -  Interest in relational processes that occur by means of design interventions, rather then preceding design interventions

Presentation:

- Discussion of Relational strategies that use principles of complexity as understood in European Planning Literature

-  Discussion of Design Tactics that employs relational/ complex processes for design unfolding in space

-  ̒Thought Experiment' (competition entry for Winnipeg, Canada)

Complexity and Relational Processes adopted in planning (representative approaches):

- Healey: Communicative -  Batty: Computational -  Hillier: Post-Structuralist/Assemblage

Emphasis on Discourse, Story-Telling and the complexity of the social agents that are implicated in spatial politics

- “notamoreadequatetheoriza/onofspace,butinsteadatheoriza/onofspa/alrhetoricandofspa/alimaginingasthisformsthecoreofaspa/alpoli/cs”‐Malpas

Spatially Enacted Complex Unfolding – a few samples…. PopUpHood, Oakland -  1 vacated city block -  6 months free rent -  7 start up businesses

Low risk entry into the market place plus critical mass.

Spatially Enacted Complex Unfolding ʻPlay me Iʼm Yoursʼ : Pianos, Toronto -  41 pianos distributed around the city -  impromptu concerts, sing-a-longs, gatherings -  activation of underused urban sites

Pianos act to probe the latent social capacities of various sites.

Spatially Enacted Complex Unfolding Pop Rocks, Vancouver -  Large scale bean bag chairs distributed along one city block -  umbrellas - Invites citizens to ʻsocialize, rest, eat or read a book in the heart of downtownʼ

Spatially Enacted Complex Unfolding -  Raw/Almond Restaurant (architecture gallery/restaurant) -  1 frozen river, 1 table for 20 -  3 weeks, 3 settings per night -  Minus 30 degrees Celsius

Occupying the frozen Red River and changing the perception of winter activity in the city.

Common Orientation: ʻLighter, Quicker, Cheaperʼ (LQC- Eric Reynolds) (also called Tactical Urbanism)

Common Traits: -  Create Juxtapositions: novel spatial connections -  Probe Lightly: low investment, failure acceptable -  Explore Widely: get feedback on ʻfitʼ configurations

Competition Entry: Portage and Main, Winnipeg -  Design for key civic intersection -  Pedestrians had been pushed underground by barricades -  Surrounding areas suffering from lack of pedestrian activity -  Many vacated sites, surface parking lots, boarded shops

Team saw the problems of the intersection as being driven by relational factors that implicated the downtown as a whole.

Site Analysis: 7 x 7 x 7:

Spaces = Niches

Programs= Species

Days = Iterations

Generative Matrix

Iterations and Feedback loops that support fitness evolution - Intersections of the matrix act as probes of fitness potentials: Saturday in July + Streets to claim + Urban play = Urban beach

What this planning strategy could offer…

Sharon Ackerman, PhD Candidate, Spatial Planning

-  speeds up the evolutionary capacity of cities by generating possibilities -  failure is an option! -  lots of tests means chances of finding good strategies (and entrenching those) -  provides a way to get around bureaucratic ʻlock-inʼ by creating a pathway to creative city uses -  information about the relative fitness of interventions is provided at a high level of resolution due to being enacted rather than forecasted

Questions?

Sharon Ackerman, PhD Candidate, Spatial Planning

‘Thetaskofcityplanninghasbecomelessoneofproducingthesimpleorderof‘ra/onal’urbanplans,butoneofhowbesttogenerateandmaintainthefunc/onalcomplexity–orcomplexfunc/onality–tradi/onallypossessedbyci/es…Thesomewhatparadoxicalchallengeofplanningthenbecomesoneofhowto‘plan’akindofcomplexitythatseemstohavearisen‘naturally’intradi/onalci/es,withoutplanning.’‐StephenMarshall2012