Embracing Complexity in Design

For abstract and program, click here.

In 2004 the Arts and Humanities Research Council and the Engineering and Physical Science Research Council launched a major interdisciplinary initiative in the UK called Designing for the 21st Century in which they funded twenty one research projects across many areas of design. Our project, Embracing Complexity in Design (ECiD), was twice funded by this programme between 2005 and 2008:

  1. many designed systems are complex, and the science of complex systems is required to understand their behaviour;
  2. many design processes are complex, including methods of fabrication, materials, and supply chains;
  3. the environment of design is complex, including regulation, and socioeconomic forces such as markets and fashion;
  4. the design process itself is a complex human system involving individual and collective perception and cognitive processes, creation and communication through language, symbols and drawings, and other ways mediated by ICT.

The project has progressed through many meetings covering a wide variety of topics, including art, multi-agent systems, multilevel systems, city planning, engineering design, robotics, fashion, neuroscience, four dimensional design, design methods, policy, collaborative design, and many others.

Many scientists researching complex systems are motivated by wanting to change and improve those systems, e.g. biology and medicine, transportation systems, economic systems, organizations, and conflict resolution. Intervention makes these synthetic systems – systems designed to perform as they ought to, in specified ways. Design studies show that specifications for synthetic systems coevolve with the generation and evaluation of solutions to the problem of satisficing the constraints. In many cases the concept of prediction in complex systems can only be investigated through implementation, but implementation can only occur through policy and design. For some systems, policy and design are the in-vivo laboratory for complex systems science. The main deliverables of the ECiD project is an edited book presenting and synthesizing the many wide ranging ideas covered on this project.

ECCS’08 will be a wonderful opportunity to disseminate our findings to the complex systems community which generally knows little about design and the importance of design in the science of complex systems, and to benefit from interacting with the complex systems community and getting its views on design.

The presentations at the satellite workshop will appear in our edited book. It would be very nice to have our book associated with ECCS’08.

Organisers:

  • Jeffrey Johnson
  • Katerina Alexiou
  • Theodore Zamenopoulos

Affiliation: The Open University, Milton Keynes, UK

http://www.complexityanddesign.net