Complexity

Abstract

Complexity is a widely used term; it has many formal and informal meanings. The aim of this chapter is to examine the relation between complexity and design. Several formal models of complexity can be applied to designs and design processes.This argument runs in two ways. First, designing provides insights into how to respond to complex systems - how to manage, plan and control them. Second, the overwhelming complexity of many design projects leads us to examine how better understanding of complexity theory can lead to improved designs and processes.This second direction is the focus of this chapter.We start with observations on where complexity arises in design, followed by an overview of the scientific background to complexity to introduce the wider context in which the concepts and methods of complexity theory have arisen. Many involved with design recognise some area of their work as complex. Figure 7.1 shows the main sites for complexity in design and designing. First, the product/service/system under construction may be complex in its own right, in structure as well as behaviour in use. Second, the process of designing may contain many interrelated tasks, each having many subtasks.Third, the designer and their part in the organisation of project teams integrating complex sets of capabilities and experience. Fourth, users, and those more widely affected through life-cycle effects such as environmental impacts, provide a complex context for designs. The relationships between designs (products, services or systems), processes, designers and users create yet another level of complexity. For example, the relation between design and users includes the difficult and complex problems of sustainability - the widespread impacts of a design across populations and into the future. Figure 7.1 also indicates the wider context of designing which forms another level of complexity. (Figure presented) The relation between product and process is critical and is frequently the source of complexity. For example, scheduling the product across available design resources and capabilities which make up the process is a difficult task, not least because individual design activities in the process have uncertain durations. The way that a product 'flows' across the resources and capabilities in the design process, with associated interactions between parts of the process, is complex. Managing these flows is a challenging task. As a design develops (through process) it is represented in several different ways.These representations and models may be complex in their own right.They may also be used in complex ways. Representations change in type and content as design proceeds from concepts and sketches to computational models and prototypes. Designing can certainly be complex in the informal senses in which it has been described above. These observed characteristics are mirrored by established formal models and ideas in the science of complexity. In Figure 7.3 we summarise briefly the main points of complexity theory (see Suh (1999) for a brief summary in relation to design).These models have evolved to describe particular systems and their properties, which accounts for some of their differences. Many complex systems display aspects of several of these views simultaneously. There is one additional point we would like to make.The way that designing develops intention, through concept to final design, appears to be an exemplar of how to model a complex system by increasing detail in representations through a process of iterative evaluation. Indeed, there may be lessons for complexity science itself from analysis of the way that design is undertaken (Cross, 2000), especially recent work on comparing processes across different domains (Eckert et al., 2004).We talk intuitively about complexity in design and know that it can cause problems. But can we understand and manage complexity in the different areas and levels of design? To answer this we do three things. First,we distinguish different kinds of complexity that are present in design. Second, we discuss the methods and techniques from complexity theory.Third,we seek to apply these to designing. © Springer-Verlag London Limited 2005.