Senior Adviser

Abstract: What we are looking for in this paper is how a multitude of decisions made by people interacting in regular cycles result in distinct and recognizable patterns in space that were not anticipated in any single decision. Through the overview of emergence and its properties, illustrated on the famous example of a computer program ‘Life’, we try to reveal the nature of emergent patterns. As decision-making is of central importance in the making of urban form we also make the connection between emergence and decision-making through hierarchical levels in emergence. In the second half of the paper some computer models that deal with urban form are examined in detail. We search for emergent patterns in models and possibly for a link to the processes in real urban form. In the conclusion we also stress the importance of emergent patterns for urban and spatial planning