Designing for Chaos: Turning Digital Complexity into a Quantum Science Learning Center

Abstract

This thesis will explore the ability of a designer to use the arbitrary relationships generated in complex systems to determine the design of a building. Traditionally, the form of a building is created through a very intentional and precisely thought out process in order to achieve some goal. Recently however, computers have allowed designers to generate forms which emerge from complex systems which produce unpredictable geometries. Today, the form a designer uses in her/his “design” does not have to be designed or intentional at all. These building forms can in fact be arbitrary. Given the increasing interest in these complex, emergent forms in architecture, it is important to understand how these arbitrary forms can be used to create design solutions. Being able to create a design solution from any type of object regardless of form or method of generation will not only validate the use the arbitrary forms generated by the computer in an architectural design, but it opens up new, undiscovered relationships between the building form, function, and site.