Micr

roplexes
s

This is a transcript of a talk delivered at th

he Bartlett school
s of Arcchitecture on
n March 24th 2010,
as part of a series of
o seminars held by the Center for Advanced
A Sp
patial Analyysis (CASA) at
Universsity College London.
L This is my firsst academic seminar, in which I layy out some off my
researchh aims and their concep ptual underp pinnnings. You
Y can see the origina al presentatiion in
the form
mat it was delivered
d herre.

Hello. M
My talk is callled micropllexes.

It’s a presentation on
o how very small comp
plex systemss can show us how to groow large urb
ban
systemss.

Today I want to talk

k about scale
e. It strikes m
me that mod
dern knowle
edge is inten
nsely specialised by
scale.

Fig. 1 Sca
ales of knowled
dge (a very rou
ugh sketch from
m my notebook
k).

This is o
one of the firrst sketches I put in my notebook when
w I started my PhD 6 months ago o. It
seemed a bit throwa away to me at the time, and of course it isn’t very accurate iin how it lin
nks
disciplin
nes, but its core
c message of scales oof knowledgee holds I thin
nk. I’m tryin
ng to work inna
cross-sccalar manner in my own n research.

I want tto show you how networrk topologiess give us a means

m of ana
alysing and ccomparing spatial
s
systemss at disparate scales, how
w network sccience givess us a vocabuulary for talkking about any
a
spatial ssystem and what
w the lim
mitations of tthat vocabullary might be.
b
The cell biologist and the ecologist will tell you that they work in different fields of the same
branch of knowledge, invoking the kind of tree taxonomy of knowledge sketched by Diderot in
the 18th Century.

Fig. 2 Tree taxonomy of knowledge from Diderot’s 18th Century Encyclopédie. Knowledge is structured into memory,
reason, imagination.
[ source ]
Fields aand branchess are, of course, metaph hors borroweed from natu ure. Here’s aanother atte
empt
from Diiderot to con nstruct a ‘figurative’ systtem of know
wledge, an in
nformation vvisualisationn of
knowled dge structurres.
Fig. 3 Pie
erre Mouchon’ss information visualisation of kknowledge stru
ucture for the Encyclopédie
E of 1780. [ sourc
ce ]

Keepingg to this trad

dition of biollogical metaaphor I see knowledge,
k like the frencch philosoph
her
Gilles D
Deleuze, better thought ofo in terms oof rhizomes. The potato is a rhizomee. A rhizome e is a
tubular root which has
h a non-hierarchical, decentraliseed structure of tubers, sh shoots and sttems. It
can givee rise to man
ny inputs and outputs, sspawning neew growths in multiple loocations. Th he
picture yyou are look
king at is tha
at of a rhizom
me.

Fig. 4 Fre
esh rhizome of a Cimicifuga Racemosa.
R [so urce ]
Of coursse, networkss can be non n-hierarchicaal, and, depeending on th he rules of en
engagement, nodes
can accoommodate manym inputss and outputts, so we cann think of kn nowledge, orr the rhizome, as a
particullar type of neetwork. Sincce we live in
n a network society,
s it is intuitive to u
us that knowwledge
is both iintensely ho
orizontally networked ass well as arborescent, clu ustered as w well as cascad
ding,
and thatt there is a dichotomy
d between
b thesse two topolo
ogies, the mesh
m and thee tree.

Fig. 5a Illustration of me
esh and tree to
opologies.
one highhly decentra
alised and th
he other high
hly hierarchical. I will trry to show h
how this inte
erplay
exists in
n many comp plex networks, not just oour systemss of knowleddge.

Very diffferent topollogies often exist at diffeerent scales of a complex network. A principle
assertio
on of mine iss that comple ex systems aare characteerised by sca ales of conneectivity, we can
c see
this by llooking at th
he rhizome structure
s itseelf. At its top
p-level, its to
opology lookks a bit like this.

Fig. 5b To
op-level topolo
ogy of a rhizome.

A mixtuure of the den

ndritic struccture associaated with treee topologies and a mesh
shwork. But if we
take a m
microscope to a shoot in the rhizomee it’ll look a little like this.
Fig. 6 Vasscular bundle of
o a fern rhizom
me. Microscopi c cross-section
n of xylem and phloem cells bby Michael Clayton.
[ source ]

Here wee see a vascuular bundle of

o cells, a deense packingg forming co oncentric cirrcles, we see
deformaations produ uced by conttractile forcees and gradiients. We seee an optimissation of surrface
area bettween cell membranes
m as
a well as a laarge diversitty of passages between ccells, a morp phology
optimiseed for two trransport sce
enarios – on ne to permit the diffusion n of materiaal through ce ell
membraanes via osm mosis and an nother to alloow materials to percolatte through th he system between
the cell boundaries,, a highly po
orous structu ure. The xyleem and phlo oem cells in tthis fern rhiizome
we’re lo
ooking at alloow water and sugars to p permeate thhe cell tissue and travel ddown the rhhizome
stem viaa diffusion in
nduced by gradients.
g

Importaantly, if we look at the to

opology of th
his cellular structure,
s we see that eaach cell is on
nly
intercon
nnected with h its closest neighbours,, there are no long range e connection ns in this sysstem. If
we mod del each cell as a node, and contact wwith other ceells as a link
k, the topologgy looks a bit like
this.

Fig. 7 Top
pology of a vasscular bundle of
o cells in a fern
n rhizome.
To a maathematician n it looks like a Delaunaay triangulattion. There are
a no hubs, and there iss no
dendritiic system, th
here is no treee, just a meeshwork. Wee say there iss a narrow d distribution of
degrees of connectivvity, where a node’s deggree denotess the number of other noodes it is linked to.
The disttribution here is based ono cell size aand the radiu
us of the vasscular bundlle at which the t cell
happenss to be. We call
c this a highly clusterred topology y because it’ss full of linkeed triplets off nodes,
this pro
operty is knoown as triadiic closure annd was discoovered in soccial networkks.

Decentrralised mesh h topologies,, gradients aand high clustering appe

ear to be chaaracteristic of
o self-
assemblling, self-org
ganising com
mplex system ms, of which
h more later..

So even in a rhizom
me itself, Deleeuze’s propoosed metaph hor for the structure of kknowledge, wew can
w scales of co
see how onnectivity are
a characterristic of commplex systemms. It’s just thhat in the ca
ase of
the rhizome, the strructure is su
ufficiently coomplex that we
w need a microscope
m too make this
apparennt.

Fig. 8 Vissualisation of Wikipedia

W page linkage netwo rk in a small su
ubgraph of pag
ges, by Ian Peaarce. [ source ]
My commments on th he rhizome aren’t
a entireely speculatioon. We have e some insigh
ght as to knoowledge
structurre through th
he analysis of
o documentt linkage in wikipedia.
w Here’s
H a smaall subgraph
h
rendereed by Ian Peaarce showing connectiviity in a few thousand
t wiikipedia pagges. You can see
straightt away both hubs
h and de
ense clusteriing, the interrplay of starr and mesh ttopologies.

Fig. 9 We
eighted, directe
ed graph of online citation nettwork, by Rosv
vall & Bergstrom
m. [ source ]
Rosvall & Bergstrom m rendered this
t directedd, weighted graph visualising an onlline citation n
network k between seeveral thousand academ mic papers. The
T volume of o citations iis expressed
d in link
widths aand colours,, the size of the
t nodes coommunicatees the amoun nt of time sp
pent surfing papers
in that ttopic by read
ders. In this analysis theey found hieerarchies of topics,
t with many flows from
the appllied sciencess directed att a smaller seet of naturall sciences. These
T naturaal sciences in
n turn
form a rring-like toppology of cita
ations betweeen themselv ves.

So in these knowled
dge network
ks we see diffferent topolo
ogies at diffe
erent scales,, we see scalles of
connecttivity.

Throughh these exammples I seek to show how w networks give us a too olkit to skip between the
ese
disparatte systems, both
b spatial and virtual,, systems as diverse as human
h know wledge and a tiny
vascularr bundle of cells.
c

I’d like tto look now at some miccroscopic sp

patial system
ms. Let’s begiin with a hu
uman artefacct which
I considder to be the smallest example of orgganised commplexity in what
w we call tthe built lan
ndscape:
the micrrochip.
Microc
chips

Fig. 10 In
ntel’s dual-core Montecito mic
cro-processor. [ source ]

This is MMontecito, Intel’s

I dual core
c chip froom 2006, wiith 1.7 billion
n transistorss fused onto a
silicon ssubstrate about 2×2cm in i dimensioons. The surfface area of Montecito
M iss smaller tha
an that
of a £2 ccoin. Let’s lo
ook at the sp
patial logic oof this chip. You
Y can tell it’s dual corre because itt
essentiaally containss a mirror im
mage around d a horizonta al axis.

Fig. 11 To
op-level layout of Intel’s Monttecito micro-pro
ocessor. [ sourrce ]
As you ccan see a miicrochip is esssentially an
n agglomeraation of mem mory, coloureed in red, arround a
small co
ore of centraal processingg units, whicch are colourred in black. Memory coomes in the form of
caches. There are ab bout four-levels of cachees in Montecito, the mo ore intense thhe colouringg, the
speedierr the cache access.
a Thesse are low acctivity areas designed simmply to storre data in between
instructtions. Along both sides you
y see a sprrawl of low-speed memo ory. The whoole chip is bounded
b
by an in
nterface to th
he rest of the
e hardware iin the form of an I/O Bu us. A Bus deescribes a pa
articular
type of n
network toppology in which one centtral link serv ves to transp
port informaation across a lot of
nodes. NNote that poower manage ement is a coompact unitt just off cen
nter, coloureed in yellow here.
h

The commponents in a microchip p are synchrronised using a clock sub bsystem and d signal dynaamics
are stricctly sequentiial within a single
s core. The chip is optimised foor round trip
ps between the
t
caches aand the coree, as these occcur multiplle times duriing the mostt rudimentarary of instrucctions.
Currentt travels betwween these components
c s on the scalee of nano seconds.

Microch hips are laid out in this configuratio

c on using mulltiple phasess of heuristicc design.
Floorplaanning, pack king and opttimisation aalgorithms crreate this top-level struccture as well as the
lower leevel configurrations. Micrrochip desiggners model the chip as a network, ggrouping the e
billions of componeents into justt hundreds oof logical un nits by identiifying wheree clustering levels
are high
h. The top-leevel topologyy of a microcchip is centeered around a small num mber of core e
compon nents but at lower
l levels, it can lookk like a highly
y clustered graph.
g Againn we see scales of
connecttivity here.

So in a m
microchip wew see an intense logic off integration n, as evidencced by its naame, the inteegrated
circuit. In this case,, optimisatio
on of connecctivity lengthhs, energy co
onsumption n and the spaatial
footprinnt of compon nents is carrried out algoorithmically.. The microcchip is an exxample of higgh levels
of integrration and density
d creatting high en ergy efficien
ncy in a com
mplex signal p processing system.
s I
would say the spatia al outcome isi one of orgganised commplexity, organised that is, by microchip
designers acting as a centralised agency. In n this sense, they can be considered master-plan nners of
a static, non-living system.
s

Here is an example of what a microchip

m city
ty might look
k like if you planned an urban syste
em in the
image o
of a micro-prrocessor.

Fig. 12 Rendering of Ma
asdar master-p
plan by Foster & Partners in Abu
A Dhabi. [ so
ource ]

This maaster-plan, Masdar,

M was proposed byy Foster & Partners
P in Abu
A Dhabi. IIt’s a high-density,
compacct, highly interlinked, wa alkable urbaanisation of 50,000
5 revoolving arounnd a businesss core.
Foster & Partners explicitly statte the microochip as desiign inspiration for the p project. It’s no
n
surprisee to see the microchip
m in
nvoked in su uch a way. Affter all, our cities too haave grown ass
agglomeerations around cores. They T too havve become polycentric,
p or
o multicoree, over time, in
order too become mo ore efficient processors of their own n. They too have
h optimissed transporrt to and
from theeir cores, wh here the vastt majority off their activiity takes place. They tooo contain mu ultiple
levels off low activityy bands in th
he form of reesidential zoones. Howev ver imperfecct the analog gy, it is
safe to ssay that we see
s a numbe er of echoes oof urban mo orphology in n this microsscopic huma an
artefact, and that inn both we see the effectss of organiseed complexitty.
Now lett’s look at an
nother inform
mation proccessing netw
work with com mponents on n a similar scale,
s
h a self-orga
but with anising dynamic, the neu
ural networkk that descriibes our braiin.

Neurall Networks
s

Fig. 13 Illustration of a tetanus neuron. [ source ]

A humaan neuron an nd a transisttor on averagge have dimmensions of about

a 1 micrron, or 10-6 meters,
m
but a brrain containss an order off magnitudee more neuro ons than conntemporary microchips possess
transistoors, about 10
0 billion. No
ote that the n
neuron is sig gnificantly more
m compleex in topology than
a transisstor, which can
c be consiidered simp ply as a switcch.

Fig. 14 Viisualisation of clustering

c in a neuron culture
e of rat hippoca
ampal neurons.. [ source ]
Both thee adult hum man brain and Montecitoo consume about a the sam
me energy, 1100 watts, bu ut they
are radiically differeent in terms of processin
ng and topollogy. The bra ain is a masssively paralllelised,
decentraalised proceessing archittecture. It’s ooften very hiighly clusterred. It’s norm
mal for a neuron to
have aroound 10,000 0 synaptic links to otherr neurons inn a human brrain, whereaas a transisto or or
logic gatte rarely tak
kes more tha an 3 inputs. TThis dispariity in degreee distributionn and cluste
ering
propertiies highlightts the core differences
d b
between thesse two inform mation proccessing netw works.

A brain then, is anaalogous not to

t a microch hip, which iss serialised and
a centralissed, but to a large
network k of microch
hips, someth
hing like the World Widee Web, anoth her self-orgaanised systeem. By
using neetwork repreesentations we can makke these com mparisons across vast spaatial scales in i a
quantitaative manneer. We can sa ay that both the brain an nd the internnet display sscale-free deegree
propertiies as well as connectiviity features rreminiscent of small-wo orld networkks. Let’s lookk at this
latter feeature.

Fig. 15 Illustration of sm
mall world netwo
ork connectivitty properties, by
b Watts & Stro
ogatz.
[ source ]
A small--world netw work exhibitss low mean p path lengthss between an ny two arbitaary nodes (L L on the
diagramm) and yet co ontains high h clustering ccoefficients (C on the diagram). You u can see herre that it
is charaacterised by lots
l of local connectivityy between nodes, as welll as the occaasional longer link,
a shortccut if you willl. Only a few
w of these loonger links are
a required in order to ttip the netw work, in
what is kknown as a phase transition, from a relatively poorly
p conne ected globall state into a small-
world sttate. From a spatial netw work standp point, small worlds
w mean n high levelss of mean
accessibbility from anny given nod de to any oth her node, a homogenou
h us distributioon of high leevels of
mobilityy if you will. We see sma all-world prooperties primmarily in sellf-organised
d networks. They
T
were firrst observed in social nettworks by W Watts & Strog gatz.

Fig. 16 Ep
pithelial cell ne
etworking. [ sou
urce ]
Comingg back to neu ural networkks. If we lookk at the grow
wth of the brrain, or neurrogenesis, we
w see
that it iss both a self--assembling
g structure, aas neurons and
a dendrite es grow and reproduce, and a
self-organising stru ucture, as neurons determ mine which other neuro ons to conneect to, each neuron
n
develop ping its dend drites, probin
ng into its su
urroundingss in search of
o neighbourring neuronss and
formingg new synapsses.

Let’s loo
ok more clossely at this mechanism
m oof biologicall growth.

Morph
hogenesis

Here wee can see epiithelial cells in a collageen substrate doing a sim
milar thing too neurons;
spontan
neously formming network ks via randoom motion and
a outreach h.

Fig. 17 Ep
pithelial cell ne
etworking video
o.

The netwworks they produce

p via this mechannism are strongly meshllike in topollogy. This kind of
self-organised netw work formation is not oftten seen in urban
u growth as it requiires the
unsuperrvised growtth of self-intterested agennts, or nodees. I will allow myself to speculate th hat you
may seee it in the devvelopment ofo linkages b
between urban centers th hat proliferaate over a lo
ong
period oof time, partticularly wheere regional policies rela
ating to commpactness orr urban containment
are not p
present.
The probing we see here due to cell tip growth is a form of morphogenesis. The term
morphogenesis describes the various processes that result in the development of form in cellular
biological systems. Let’s look at more morphogenetic processes, because they can show us some
spatial outcomes of self-organisation.

Here’s one of the most fundamental, mitosis,

Fig. 18 Mitotic processes in a one-hour old fruit fly embryo imaged via confocal microscopy. A Histone protein is tagged
with a substance that allows us to track cell nuclei.

It is interesting to note that mitosis creates very dense but essentially decentralised
morphologies. We can say they’re decentralised because a centrality analysis of the network
representation will show us that no cell in the system is especially important from the point of
view of the global connectivity of the system. Cellular systems provide us with a good
demonstration of this fact, that high-density form is not the same as centralised form.

In this mesh topology, cell integration is not as good as that evinced in small-world networks,
because, as with the vascular bundle, long range shortcuts are not available. Note the
synchronisation of various phases of mitotic processes across all the cells.

Lastly here are epithelial ducts developing a complex network structure through a process known
as branching morphogenesis. This movie depicts a fragment of epithelium growing in a 3D gel of
extracellular matrix proteins. New ducts initiate, elongate, bifurcate, and stop. This
morphogenetic process underpins the fractal cardiovascular structures in our own bodies. It
creates self-similar, dendritic structures, a tree topology.

Fig. 19 Branching Morphogenesis in epithelial cells.

The Sabin & Jones architecture studio has examined the effects of branching morphogenesis in
endothelial cells and how the attractive forces between the cells deform the substrate, which is
modelled as an extra-cellular matrix, or ECM,

Fig. 20 Model showing ECM deformations produced by spontaneous network formation in enothelial cells, by Sabin &
Jones. [ source ]
My ownn research in
nto morphog genesis has rrevolved aroound the reaction-diffussion dynamiccs
proposeed by Alan Turing
T in the
e 50s. He waas trying to find
f a mathe ematical mod del to explaiin
pattern formation in
n organismss, from butteerfly wing paatterns to ze
ebra stripes..

Fig. 21 Allan Turing’s rea

action-diffusion
n model for patttern formation has successfu
ully been applieed to the wing patterns
of Papilio Dardanus.
[ source ]
He propposed the difffusion of ann activator aand inhibitorr through ann evolving ceellular system m over a
period o
of time, the concentratio
c on gradientss dictating ceell differentiiation, ie a zzebra skin ce
ell can
be black
k or white acccording to the
t concentrration of a white-cell
w acttivator at thee point whenn it
forms. B
Biologists wo ould call the
ese activatorrs morphogeens, as these e are the prot oteins that re
egulate
gene exp
pression. I’vve used thesee reaction-ddiffusion dynnamics to explore morph hology using
g
generatiive graphicss.

Fig. 22 Generative model showing how

w reaction-diffu
usion dynamics
s can produce gradients in a matrix of lines..
In my grraphics I’ve used a grow wing matrix oof straight liines, one added at each time step, to
investiggate what kinnd of formattions this kinnd of dynammics can prod duce. My moorphogens, an
activatoor and inhibiitor, hidden from view, aare placed randomly
r on
n the canvas.. They react,, diffuse
and dep plete over tim
me. In this graphic
g you ccan see a gra
adient operaating from leeft-to-right,
deformiing lines and d affecting liine growth. N
No two vertical slices off this image are the sam
me as a
result. G
Gradients inn morphogen nesis are cappable of crea
ating this kin
nd of heteroggenous spacce, with
no two sspatial elem
ments alike.

Fig. 23 Generative model showing how

w reaction-diffu
usion dynamics
s can produce pattern formatiion in a matrix of lines.
In this o
one you can see pattern formation in n organic lo
ooking tendriled structurres, lines curved out
of shapee by a force of
o attraction
n induced byy the activato
or.

Fig. 24 Generative model showing how

w an uninhibite
ed attractor can
n produce inten
nsities in a mattrix of lines.
In this o
one you can see what ha appens when n the inhibittor has a low
w concentratition. Intensitties
appear aaround the location
l of th
he activatorr, which agaiin acts as an
n attractor. D
Depending ono the
diffusionn functions and reaction n kinetics yoou choose annd the prope erty of your ggraphical
compon nents, there is a large phhase space off potential morphologie
m es. I’ve rendeered many such
paramettric images asa a means of o visual thinnking on thee potential of
o morphogeenetic dynam mics to
influencce evolving urban
u form ini a setting oof decentrallised urban policy.
p

In the u
urban analog gy, you can think
t of thesse models ass based on se elf-organisinng cells and a policy
mechan nism, in the form
f of a moorphogen, th hat activatess or inhibits certain cell behaviours. For
examplee, you can th hink of plann ned retail orr business lo
ocations as potential
p acti
tivators, activating
residenttial ‘genes’ in
n cells as thee concentrattion of the activator
a difffuses througgh space. Aura
Reggianni of UCL ha as used reacttion-diffusioon dynamicss to model ho ow the cost oof transporttation
influencces populatio on distribution in just s uch a mann ner. You can also think oof the ECM as a a
street m
matrix, deforrmed by both h attractors and cell inteeractions.
It should be noted that
t networkk representaations of spa
ace, being disscontinuouss, can’t accurately
express gradients. Information
I is invariably
ly lost during
g the processs of convertting
morpho ogenetically induced form
ms into netwworks.

Before m
moving on I’’d like to briiefly show yoou one moree self-organiising microsscopic system
m,
micelless,

Fig. 25 M
Micelle formation in sodium ole
eate moleculess. [ source ]

Sodiumm oleate moleecules self-organise intoo a variety off forms, including spherres, circles and
sheets, aas a result of hydrophiliic and hydroophobic molecular ends.. Crucially th
hough, this isi just
physics and chemistry acting on n molecules — the systeem is not aliv
ve.

I want tto skip to thee urban scale

e now finallyy, to articula
ate some of my research h aims. Look king at a
multitud de of compleex systems has
h allowed me to propeerly situate my m system oof interest, namely
n
the city.. This 4-wayy chart showw some of thee complex sy ystems I’ve looked
l at, sittuated on ann axis of
living to
o non-living and self-org ganised to orrganised. Th he term orgaanised in thiis case referrring to
some fo orm of centra alised plann
ning.

Fig. 26 Complex system

ms 4-way chart
You can n see microchhips and posst-modern aarchitecture in the botto om right, braains, cellularr
systemss and social networks
n in the top left,, and micellees and the World
W Wide WWeb in the bottom
b
left – th
hese are non-living, self--organised ccomplex systtems. Cities however, fal all squarely in the
middle o of these axes. They are living
l systemms characterrised by sociial interactioon within a built
b
environ nment andinfrastructure e. In part orgganised by central
c agenccies, in part self-organissing, in
terms off all the unsu
upervised decisions maade by individual develop pers. This orrganisationa al
dynamicc will vary depending
d onn whether yoou’re lookinng at say, info
ormal urban nism in the global
g
south orr the Westerrn post-metrropolis.

So, to m
my research aims.
a

One of m
my aims is to
o grow citiess.

Growin
ng Cities

Fig. 27 Arrchigram’s plug

g-in city (1964)). [ source ]
This traadition starteed out in arcchitecture inn the 60s, wiith the Bartlett’s own arcrchitectural group
g
Archigraam proposin ng this plug--in city, arraanged within n a huge scafffolding andd presided ovver by a
multitud de of craness. It was theiir assertion tthat organicc, complex grrowth patterrns could arrise out
of this aadaptive frammework of multi-storey,
m , pluggable architectura
a l units, that ‘organicnesss’ could
arise ouut of heuristiics.

The man
n with the ciigar and the
e detachable collar in thiis image,

Fig. 28 Cedric Price (19

964). [ source ]
is Cedric Price. He introduced
i the
t term gen nerator into
o architecturral practice iin the 60s, as
a part of
his ideaas relating feeedback cybe
ernetic systeems to respo
onsive archittectures. Theese ideas we ent into
his Fun Palace projeect, a proposed culturall center to bee located on what is now w London’s olympic
o
site on tthe River Leea.

Fig. 29 Cedric Price’s Fun Palace. [ so

ource ]
In my owwn researchh, I’m using Price’s term
m, generator,, to describe a bottom-up
up urban policy
ruleset d
designed to describe gro
owth rules.

I’m consscious in thiis mode of enquiry of haarking back to what Pete er Hall has d
described ass the
heyday of systems planning,
p the 60s, which h saw systemms analysts propose
p man ny idealised forms
for the ccity. Here arre just four theoretical
t trransport sysstems compiiled in Hagggert & Chortlley’s
excellen
nt book from m that era. Many
M of thesee are based on
o fairly red
ductive shorttest path analysis.

Fig. 30 Trransport netwo

orks for theoretical settlementts (A) Kohl, 185
50 (B) Christaller, 1933 (C) Loosch, 1954 (D)) Isard,
1960. [ so
ource ]
A modern approach h to urban grrowth modeels makes a significant
s departure,
d in
n that we are
e
interested in growin ng emergentt forms usinng bottom-upp rulesets, or generatorss, which can
n be used
to modeel environmeental, transp port or econ
nomic policy. In this cellu
ular automaata model by
y Bill
Hillier iin the 80s, he
h attempted d to reprodu
uce the comp
plex form of French villaages using
placemeent rules forr buildings.

Fig. 31 Cellular automatta model for grrowing French hamlets, by Bill Hillier (1989) [ source ]
My supeervisor Mikee Batty’s own
n research aalso containss a variety off growth moodels, includ
ding his
work on
n the dual urrban evolutio
onary modeel, or DUEM, designed as a a predictivve model forr land
use dynamics. Heree are some of his attemppts to model crystal grow wth systems with noise,

Fig. 32 Crystal city grow

wth, variations with
w stochasticc noise, by Mike
e Batty. [ sourc
ce ]
We can broadly cateegorise grow
wth models iinto two types. First tho ose that attemmpt to modeel
aspects of real world urban systtems. Seconndly, a breed d of growth model
m that aattempts to
incorporate developpment rulese ets, or generrators, to moodel new forrms of econoomic, transpport or
nmental policcy and analy
environ yse their resuults. One suuch algorithm
mic model iss the comple ex grid,
n Mathieu Helie’s
based on H policy
y rulesets, w
which are dessigned to ha arness self-oorganisation.

Fig. 34 Th
hree stages of growth in Math
hieu Helie’s co
omplex grid. [ so
ource ]
The threee principless Helie state
es as the bassis of his gro
owth model are:
a

1. Any siize of urban

n growth is allowed as loong as the neew growth ex xtends the bboundary of the
network k. This ensurres that the city has the economic fllexibility of the
t medievaal city and alllows
anyone,, no matter their
t econommic importan nce, to contrribute to the
e city’s growt
wth.
2. The n
network musst not becom me so compliicated that it becomes im mpossible too move arou
und in
order to
o participatee in large-sca
ale activitiess and a cultu
ure of congesstion.
3. Streetts must not grow too lonng without iinterruption n in such a way
w that speeeding and traffic
accidentts are encouuraged.

The ruleesets allow private

p devellopment on any available part of the network soo long as the
e
develop
per replace thhe part used
d up by exten
nding the neetwork aroun nd the new bblock. Comm munity
develop
pment can prroduce wide er roads, whiich you can see in yellow
w.

Fig. 35 M
Mathieu Helie’s complex grid. [ source ]
Policy in
nterventionss are allowed
d, only for th
he widening
g of existing links into riing roads tha
at
producee more of a small-world
s connectivityy model.

Through h this modell Helie attemmpts to show w how policyy can reducee its predictivve role in prrojecting
growth tthrough cosstly, speculattive infrastru ucture invesstment, and reduce its oorganisational role
in dictatting preciselly how grow wth occurs. TThe outcomee, or so he claims, is susttainable gro owth
based on n dense urban form. It’ss not withou ut its complications how
wever, as thesse kind of models
m
are esseentially behaavioural mod dels for plan
nners and co
ontain ideoloogical statemments about policy.
They aree also still siimplistic.

But by bbuilding softtware modells with thesee kind of gro owth rules, where
w policyy acts like
instructtionalDNA asa opposed too the agent oof a total, ceentralised vission, we cann analyse how self-
organisaation can creeate urban environment
e ts with diffeerent connecctivity propeerties to our
contemp porary citiess and compa
are those diffferences.

One of m
my researchh aims is to produce
p algoorithmic urbban growth models
m whicch harness se elf-
organisaation by modeling growwth accordingg to these po olicy generattors, investiigating the resultant
urban fo
orms and prroviding an analytical
a tooolkit to anallyse the eme
ergent morp phologies. Th his will
come in
n terms of a network
n anaalysis of theiir connectiviity propertie
es. These moodels will
necessarily producee far more he eterogenouss form than the idealised
d forms prodduced by sysstems
analystss in the 60s, as we begin
n to approxim
mate morph hogenetic dyynamics throough bottomm-up
rulesetss.

My secoond research h aim is a syn

nthetic netw
work analysis of London
n’s public traansport syste
ems, to
include bus, rail and
d tube netwo orks.

Urban Connectiv
vity

Let’s loo
ok at scales of
o connectiv
vity in the urrban contextt as a meanss to understaanding the basis
b of
this worrk.

Fig. 36-40
0 Increasing sccales of connec
ctivity in a 3km
m slice of East London,
L produc
ced using Clouudmade [ sourc
ce ]

Here is a segment ofo East Lond don, the nortthern tip of the
t City and d Hoxton, abbout 3km wide. At
the loweest end of ou
ur hierarchyy of scales, w
we have the pedestrian
p network
n of foootpaths
represennted as dashhed lines. Yo
ou can see it’’s fragmenteed and incom mplete. It’s rreliant on neetworks
further up the scalee. We can sayy it’s poorly decoupled from
f other networks
n andd not self-re
eliant.
From a systems view wpoint, this strikes one immediatelly as poor de esign, as lowwer layers shhould
generallly not be deppendent on upper
u layerss in the systeem. Up the scale
s we havve residentia al and
tertiary roads,
These tooo form arch hipelagos. You can see a single resid
dential latticce up near th
he top but th
he rest is
a set of iincoherent fragments.
f
The primmary and A--roads, by co ontrast, form m a strong mesh
m of arterries. They haave the mostt
coherennt form out ofo all the sca
ales so far, id
dentifiable as a single neetwork. Finaally we have the
longer liinks of the underground
u d system,

These liinks are obviiously decouupled from aall the others. And at the
e highest con
nnectivity sccale, we
have lonng range raillway links,
As we have seen, a diversity
d of scales
s of con
nnectivity is a key prope erty of self-oorganised complex
systemss. It helps them to deal with
w a multip plicity of tra
ansport scen
narios. Scaless of connecttivity are
also thee basis for sm
mall-world properties
p in
n networks. MyM hypothesis is that a ccity can achieve this
level of complexity through
t org
ganised grow wth, and in doing
d so it ca
an improve iits efficiencyy in
terms off the mobilitty of its inha
abitants.

arch aims to use an undeerstanding of

It’s partt of my resea o scales of connectivity
c y and small-wworlds
to analyyse represenntations of thhe public traansport systeem in Londo on, with a vieew to propo
osing
intervenntions, in thee form of lin
nk reconfigu uration, delettion or addition, which improve glo obal
characteeristic path lengths
l whillst retainingg the high clu
ustering pro
operties thatt maximise
movemeent potentia al at the neig
ghbourhood scale.

I’ve starrted with an analysis of the

t bus netw
work. I’ll jusst show you some
s quick vvisualisation
ns I’ve
rendereed for now. Here
H is Londdon’s morph
hology as exp pressed thro
ough its 25,0
000 bus stop ps.

Fig. 41 Viisualisation of London’s 24,69

90 bus stops. D
Data from NPT
TDR.
In this vvisualisation
n you can see
e the networrk representtation of ove
er 700 bus rooutes.

Fig. 42 Viisualisation of London’s 734 bus

b routes. Da
ata from NPTDR
R.
As I menntioned earllier, small in
nterventionss can tip a neetwork from
m a poorly coonnected sta
ate to a
small-w
world state, and
a in my an nalysis I’m trrying to crea
ate techniqu
ues to spot w
where poor
connecttivity can be remedied with
w small in nterventions.

In this aabstracted veersion,

Fig. 43 Ab
bstracted visua
alisation showing directionalitty in London’s bus network. Data
D fromNPTD
DR.
I’ve emp phasised rou ute direction
nality to get an idea of th
he intensity of routing in
n each direcction. I
have con nstrained lin
nks largely to
t horizontall, vertical orr 45 degree angles,
a much h as Harry Beck
B did
in his cllassic Londoon Undergro ound map.

***

In summ aken you through a diverrse set of spatial system

mary, I’ve ta ms to show yoou how netw
work
science can providee us with a vo
ocabulary foor comparatiive analysis..

I’ve shown how in self-organisi

s ng complex systems of all sizes we can
c see efficciencies in te
erms of
connecttivity: we seee scales of co
onnectivity aand small-w
world properrties. These iinsights can provide
us with models by which
w to quaantify the weell-formedneess of urban
n transport n
networks. Fo or
examplee, I’ve touch
hed on the brrokenness off the pedestrian web in East London n. There is scope
s for
 novel analysis and novel techniques for identifying low-cost reconfigurations of transport links
based on these insights.

I’ve touched on how creating generative growth models for cities that embrace self-organisation
through bottom-up policy rules, or generators, can provide insights into how to produce more
sustainable urban form. Even our cursory glance at cell biology gives us clear examples of very
dense yet decentralised spatial formations which allow for effective transport of nutrients
through porous structures and boundary diffusion. These kind of insights into density,
morphology and transport can contribute to the discourse on sustainable urban form and growth.

Lastly, I’ve introduced several concepts from morphogenetic systems, such as cells, gradients,
extra-cellular matrix, motility and morphogens, which are useful when talking about emergent
morphologies, a vocabulary that can be employed in the kind of urban growth models I am
working with.

Thank you.

See Also: Network, Infrastructure, Cybernetics, Emergence, Morphogenesis, Space Syntax

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Revised on October 4, 2010 20:23 by Anil Bawa-Cavia