BioComplexity, Systems Thinking, and Multi-Scale Dynamic Simulation: Foundations of Geodesign

Abstract

Landscape Architecture and Planning have long used visual simulations for design ideation and communication, but the complex demands of the twenty-first century will require more than simply visual simulations; dynamic simulations across a spectrum of scientific, social and perceptual issues will be key to effective design in the future. The new science and art of ‘geodesign’ promises to harness digital and computational technologies, from Geographic Information Sciences (GIS) and remote sensing to software engineering and algorithmic design, in the service of imagining, designing, simulating, implementing, and evaluating better environments, worldwide, enabling collaborative design informed by scientific knowledge. Landscape ecology, engineering, and other disciplines have contributed non-visual, and sometimes non-static, analyses to the repertoire of impact assessment in natural systems management, transportation, energy, and urbanization projects, etc., but these additions are mostly still of limited scope and complexity. The interrelated nature of natural systems at all scales is still only becoming apparent to us and to the scientific community, as the recent interest in ‘biocomplexity’ and ‘systems thinking’ demonstrates (e.g. NSF Biocomplexity initiative). Increasingly, geodesign projects will need to incorporate systems thinking across all aspects of the process, be informed by the findings of biocomplexity research, and make maximum use of multi-scale dynamic simulations in the process of evaluating impacts of proposed designs