DISCIPLINED CHAOS IN THE DESIGN PROCESS

The discovery of chaos theory meant for many scientists the end of traditional notions of causality. As a non-linear process, a design process is determined by a 'disciplined chaos': the continuous interaction of law and chance, order and disorder, structural constraint and liberty of decisions, method and intuition, calculation and spontaneity. Most design situations are influenced by so many aspects, that it isn't possible to understand and to plan them completely.

In this paper, I will start by introducing diverse fundamental notions and concepts of contemporary chaos theory, and from this will be derived some hypotheses on the nature of design processes. Also, the existing paradigms of design methodology will be examined from the perspective of 'disciplined' chaos.

Research into 'Determined Chaos' shows - as the notion itself implies - that chance and deterministic rules complement each other in the creative process of nature. The paper describes the evolutional models of creativity from Binnig and Guntern, which show that casual events are driving forces for each evolutionary advance.

Creativity is based on combining and relating previously unrelated elements with unknown, and for some observers, surprising consequences. In this connection the role of the observer will be emphasised, because the interaction of chaos and order, chance and law, can only be subjective: it depends on the observer what interaction takes place, if a system is considered chaotic or not, and if a new creation is judged as original.

Chaos theory suggests that the design process shows the phenomenon of 'transscalar self-similarities' over different levels of complexity. Design processes have a fractal pattern, i.e. each process is similar to the other in spite of the uniqueness of each design situation. The interest of chaos research is directed to hidden structures of order, to nuances and 'rules', how from the unpredictable can emerge something new. And there is its contribution to design methodology, in which the paradigms of 'Rational Problem Solving' (classic paradigm) and 'Reflective Practice' (Schön) were substituted, or rather completed, by the paradigm of 'Co-Evolution of the Problem-Solution Space' (Dorst & Cross).

As one conclusion of this paper, we can consider all paradigms as 'valid'. It depends only from which perspective, in which context and with which interest the design process is observed: sometimes the process is based on rules and can be improved through the application of certain methods and techniques; sometimes the process is dominated by chaos and chance, and is difficult to control.

Keywords: Chaos theory, design process, creativity, co-evolution.

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DORST, Kees, CROSS, Nigel (2001), "Creativity in the design process: co-evolution of problem solution“ in Design Studies, Vol. 22, Number 5, September 2001, Elsevier Science Ltd., pp425 – 437.
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