Why compute when you can simply use a formula? because bypassing computation rules out any adaptation.

Above is the Bacardi Rum Factory, designed for Santiago de Cuba, 1959 (unrealized), architect: Ludwig Mies van der Rohe. Instead the same building was built in Berlin in 1968 as the Neue Nationalgalerie. Does it adapt to the same function, location, users, and climate? Of course not: it is an object building, detached from adapted context. This is the beginning of commodification — of architecture as “industrial packaging”.

  • Salingaros, Nikos A., and Michael W. Mehaffy. "Ch 15. Computational Irreducibility" In Design for a Living Planet: Settlement, Science, & the Human Future. Design for a Living Planet: Settlement, Science, & the Human Future. Levellers/Sustasis Press and Vajra Publications, 2015. Digital Library
Hans Knips

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  • "Figures." In Design for a Living Planet: Settlement, Science, & the Human Future. DFLAP. Levellers/Sustasis Press and Vajra Publications, 2015.
  • Mehaffy, Michael W., and Nikos Angelos Salingaros. "Ch 15. Computational Irreducibility." In Design for a Living Planet: Settlement, Science, & the Human Future, 156-164. Design for a Living Planet: Settlement, Science, & the Human Future. Levellers/Sustasis Press and Vajra Publications, 2015.