Complexity

With special attention to the difference between generated and fabricated structure and the huge economic cost to our society of the fabricated structures which are created by contemporary architecture.

Ostensibly, we are surrounded by complexity. The modern city is immensely complex. Buildings are complex. Ecosystems, and the biosphere are still more complex. Computers and computer networks, and software, are all enormously complex.
It would be natural to expect, therefore, that we must have a theory of complexity, that we have an effective and sensible way of thinking about the best way to create complexity. Faced with the need, growing every day, to create successful complex structures all around us, one would expect that we have at least asked ourselves how, in general, a complex structure may become well-formed. We should long ago have asked ourselves this most basic question: Is the way that we view design, planning, and construction — in all the spheres mentioned, ecosystems, buildings, communities, objects, computers and computer software — the right way to produce sufficient complexity, and does what we are doing have a chance of success?
And the answer is, that there is a fundamental law about the creation of complexity, which is visible and obvious to everyone — yet this law is, to all intents and purposes, ignored in 99% of the daily fabrication processes of society. The law states simply this: All the well-ordered complex systems we know in the world, all those anyway that we view as highly successful, are generated structures, not fabricated structures.

#book/The Nature of Order/2 The process of creating life/6 Generated structure#