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Article 172 (162 more) in alt.architecture:
From: randolph@cognito.ebay.Sun.COM (Randolph Fritz)

Subject: Re: Chaos Theory
Date: 25 Oct 92 22:58:43 GMT
Followup-To: alt.architecture
Organization: St. Dismas Infirmary for the Incurably Informed
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NNTP-Posting-Host: cognito.ebay.sun.com
In-reply-to: churayj@yalevm.edu's message of Sun, 25 Oct 1992 23:51:00 GMT

I think a big application of chaos theory to architecture lies in
the observation that cities are chaotic systems, and urban form is
fractal.  A city is a phase space of human activity.  Now that I think
about it, so is any structure.  And a "dead" space is one that
contains no activity; something that doesn't somehow mirror the
motions of the people around and in it.

Perhaps another direction in which fractal models are useful is
because they provide a way to organize multiple scales of space, and
yet another is in decorative patterns.

But perhaps the most important and difficult application is in the
modelling of form.  Fractal forms can have what architects and artists
--MORE--(83%)call "life;" natural form.  Chaos theory is one of the long-sought
bridges between mathematics and natural form and we will probably be
centuries in learning all its possibilities.

__Randolph Fritz  sun!cognito.ebay!randolph || randolph@ebay.sun.com
End of article 172 (of 175)--what next? [npq] 173
Article 173 (161 more) in alt.architecture:
From: mcgonig@eeserv.ee.umanitoba.ca (Gordon McGonigal)

Subject: Re: Chaos Theory
Date: 26 Oct 92 23:14:27 GMT
Organization: Dept. of Elect. & Comp. Engineering, U of Manitoba
Lines: 20
Nntp-Posting-Host: ic16.ee.umanitoba.ca

randolph@cognito.ebay.Sun.COM (Randolph Fritz) writes:
>I think a big application of chaos theory to architecture lies in
>the observation that cities are chaotic systems, and urban form is
>fractal.

I agree that cities are chaotic (who wouldn`t? :) but I don`t quite see
that they are a "chaotic system" in the mathematical sense.  To me, a
chaotic system shows highly complex behavior that emerges from a simple
generating function.   A related point is that "chaotic systems" have a
relatively small number of degrees of freedom.  For example, it is
impossible to predict the path of a particular molecule in a gaseous
volume, but I would not call this a chaotic system because of its
enormous number of degrees of freedom.  I can only see the city as a
gas.  Is there a simple generating function behind the city that I`m
missing?
--MORE--(85%)--
                                   * * *
Gord McGonigal                                  mcgonig@eeserv.ee.UManitoba.ca
Dept. of Electrical & Computer Engineering
University of Manitoba, Winnipeg, CANADA (R3T 2N2)       phone: (204) 474-6295
End of article 173 (of 175)--what next? [npq] 