Rigors and complexity

"Complexity is achieved by recursive repetition of a simple rule from which stems the structure's geometry and detail. Within this complexity modularity and repetition are preserved and hierarchies order and govern process of fabrication and construction

Complexity is latent order not chaos. It keeps the eye in constant search for that hidden rule that moves and is lost within this spiralling patterns of lines that surround you.

And finally complexity generates pattern and ornament, tectonic in its nature and therefore indiscernible from the structure."

Cecil Balmond

Extracted from: MEREDITH, M: 2008, From Control to Design Parametric/Algorithmic Architecture Actar, Barcelona.

Geometric Algorithm

"Our challenge became that of finding a rule, an algorithm that would generate that chaos with its intricate beauties, but with an underlying order that would allow the realisation of the pavillion within fourteen weeks."

"We set off our research by taking the square plan of the pavillion and subdividing it with a rather arbitrary geometric rule. Our approach is very often to start from an arbitrary point and critically examine the multiple outcomes that yield from modifying the starting rule."

Cecil Balmond on Toyo Ito's 2002 Serpentine Gallery Pavillion

Extracted fom: MEREDITH, M: 2008, From Control to Design Parametric/Algorithmic Architecture Actar, Barcelona.