Design Needs Complexity Theory - by Kasey Klimes

Despite Christopher Alexander’s notable application of complexity theory in design during the 60's and 70's, the two fields have mysteriously grown apart. The contemporary design world demonstrates little interest in complexity theory, and design is generally absent in the world of complexity theory. I think this separation is not only a missed opportunity, but also a tragic error for humanity on a larger scale. In the spring of 2011, when I was a design student in Copenhagen, my professor loaned me a copy of Christopher Alexander’s A Pattern Language (1977). Heavy with thin pages, the red, leather-bound book felt like a Bible in my hands. Although I didn’t fully grasp what I was reading at first (in some ways I'm still trying to wrap my mind around it), I realized that Alexander was describing a truth about reality which was much deeper than architecture.1 I had never read anything like it—it was somehow mathematical yet poetic, sophisticated yet straightforward, philosophical yet pra

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