A new concept of adaptive complexity

Abstract

Animate systems can organize their complexities to stay alive. They run in easiest ways within specific boundaries to keep their existence and to maintain highest levels of interaction with their surrounding environments. They are (living) systems of emergent (adaptive) and evolved (survived) complexities. The focus here will be on adaptive complexities of their flexible structures. Man-made systems, like cities, are constructed and shaped by instant and accumulative human decisions. Metaphorical questions about the possibility of these systems to behave alike are re-raised. It is argued that their emergent (generative) processes according to optimal combinations of physical and visual connections would enhance their adaptivity. A different method, derived from space syntax, provides a new tool for detecting and estimating these adaptive complexities. It provides measurable dimensions, as sensitive indicators, of adaptive complexities and explains how their continual and generative (size-dependence) processes emerge. In (2D) systems, it is found that organized complexities have adaptive dimensions of fractal values approach to (D_A≈1-2). Also, from results on the grounds, each existing urban fabric has a structure with a specific and comparable local and global adaptive dimension. More supportive researches and applications in various (2D) and (3D) systems are needed to develop the concept.