Deep Simplicity of Zero
Research Seminar, 20th February 2019
Deep Simplicity is complexity of system behaviour arising from simple rules deep inside the system. Zero is a ‘dangerous’ idea of a singularity and exception from the norm, and also of a state of balance between inputs and outputs or gains and losses. The talk investigates whether a combination of deep simplicity and zero balances could be used to spontaneously mimic nature. It explores buildings as they were, as they are, and as they could be.
Starting from vernacular architecture from pre-industrial age when buildings worked with nature, in the industrial age buildings became machines that disregarded climate. Deep simplicity inspired thinking can now take us in the direction of self-organising designs that not only work with nature, but that also create opportunities for making design embryos that can grow into full building designs of maximum efficiency.
Solving Hard Problems with Interdisciplinary Ideas
Professorial Inaugural Lecture, 25th June 2014
In this lecture I talk about a journey through different disciplines and explain how taking inspiration and ideas from seemingly unrelated disciplines helped me to solve hard problems in other disciplines. In this journey I connect the dots between emergence in nature, complexity science, computer science, engineering,
building science and architecture and explain how this informed my research into designing zero carbon buildings. I challenge the traditional top-down approach in science and explain how a bottom-up approach to problem solving blurs boundaries between disciplines and takes us further in our journey of discovery.
