Physics Empowered Architecture

In one of my earlier posts I described how an article in the New York Times suggested that physical networks of various scales and sizes, ranging from cells to cities to galaxies, may be subject to a universal principle.

What we did not know then, but what we do know now, is that these patterns can be explained as the NYT suggested, using the latest discoveries in Network Science. I am currently reading the excellent and surprisingly understandable book ‘Linked’ by leading scientist in this field Albert-Lazlo Barabasi, which explains how this works in terms of physics.

Thinking of a network, you may think of the US road system, which has been beautifully illustrated by Ben Fry with an image showing 26 million individual road segments, and nothing else, forming the outlines of the United States. You can see how the roads form a mesh that is more or less, dependent on the population density in a particular area, equally distributed. These types of networks are called random networks, where every node in the network, i.e. every city, has roughly the same number of links to the interstate highways. It is a network that is poorly connected though, as you will have to travel over all intermediate links if you want to go from one node to the other.

A network of a different kind is the US airways network. In this movie provided by NASA you can see clearly how a small number of airports are hubs with a prominent role in the network, whereas most airports only have a modest role. This type of network is subject to what is called power law distribution, which can roughly be explained through the 80/20 rule, in which in this case 80 percent of the traffic is being processed by 20 percent of the airports. Networks of this kind are highly connected, as you can travel around the globe visiting only a small number of (mayor) airports.

The road network nor the airways network have ever been designed. They simply emerged, following a pattern that can be seen in many natural phenomena. It shows indeed how we are subject to the laws of nature. How exactly these laws have their influence on matter, i.e. our cities, roads and airport, and what factors influence or drive them, remains to be discovered.

Design seems to have little influence though. But if we discover how design may influence nature’s laws, physics may become a tool to deal with the vast slumification and overcrowding the world’s cities struggle with today, with all its humanitarian problems involved, and to which planners and architects like myself are so painfully inadequate to respond.

All work on NightlyBuilt.org is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 License. This means you are free to reproduce everything as long as you make it available to the public as well, and refer to the original author and site: Maurits Ruis (CC) 2009 – www.nightlybuilt.org .