Dagmar Übelhör is working as a district architect in Zurich. Here she discusses about complexity associated with her field.

Where do you encounter complexity in your occupational field?

A town has to fulfill various functions and claims that often clash with each other. On the one hand highly efficient public and private transport is demanded, on the other hand most people prefer to live in a calm area surrounded by nature. Nobody wants to have a highway in front of the house. It is extremely challenging and hardly possible to find an optimal compromise for all the different needs. Moreover, the claims vary over time. A town is a dynamic construct; it changes with the people that life in it. Both governments and politics, cultures and rules influence the character of a city. This is why I consider a town to be highly complex. Consequently, complexity is a pivotal topic in town planning.

How do you approach complexity in your field? Do you follow a formula?

Before I try to find a solution I define the different aspects of the problem. However, in town planning it is most often not possible to divide a problem in several sub-problems. The approaches for the sub-problems would not suffice to cover the complexity of the whole problem. Actually, for me that is a characteristic feature for complexity. Experience helps to approach a problem in town planning. On the other hand it is also important to venture something. Of course, each school building has classrooms and other similarities, but then at least the ground and the surrounding are unique each time. There is no formula; each situation is different.

Is it possible to build a whole town by scratch, to plan complexity on a paper?

While most towns were built over decades or centuries, emerged from an aggregation of houses, there have been different attempts to plan whole towns by scratch. Two famous examples are the Indian city Chandigarh that has been planed by Le Corbusier and the Brasília, the capital of Brazil. However, there are also many less known cities that did not grow from a couple of houses to a village to a town, but have been designed as a whole. The results of such an approach are not always planned and are in many cases not successful at all. Without a long lasting growth process cities often have an artificial and unattractive appearance.

Could you give examples for effective and ineffective handling of complexity in architecture?

In some parts of our town, for example in Oerlikon, modern new apartments and offices were built. Albeit the facilities are not empty, the whole area seemed to be dead and sterile. No life was detectable on the streets and the squares. Modern facilities are not a guarantee for success; they have to be accepted by the people. Business and yield do not prepare the ground for a good atmosphere when other components are missing. In the case of Oerlikon, complexity was not handled effectively until a second intervention occurred: stores, kindergarten and other institutions were attracted. Thus the area was recreated, enlivened, and finally accepted. Architectural interventions that can be used in different ways are often more successful than those that only fit one particular purpose. Many times it is difficult to predict the needs and wants of the society. An intervention that leaves space for interpretation is more flexible and can adapt to the needs and wants. On the other hand, interventions with a tightly defined purpose are only effective if their offer is actually demanded. Many times these interventions fail.

You mentioned how difficult it can be to predict the reaction of the society to an architectural intervention. Could you describe situations that surprised you?

A public square in Zurich (Sechseläutenplatz) at a prominent location next to the opera was renovated. The architects planned an open space with room for interaction. What the architects probably did not expect was the high popularity of the square among high school students; each noon dozen of students sit there on the floor to have lunch. Immediately, the new square was accepted and integrated into the daily life of Zurich’s population. That is not always the case. Another example of an architectural intervention that surprised me is about a café (Kafi Schnaps). The café is not in an unpopular area but placed at the corner of two main roads. The main room of the café still shows the white tiles of its past life as a butcher’s shop. Outside on the terrace it is loud and shady and still people love to stay there for a drink. Why?

Hmm, I also go there sometimes and I quite like the place. But it is true, I cannot exactly tell you why…

Would you say a town consists of simple units?

You can call bins, trees, tram stations or benches simple units. Or also bigger objects such as a church, a theatre or the established pavilions “Züri-Modular” in Zurich; provisional arrangements that are used during conversions of school buildings. However, all of these objects are never isolated from their surrounding. Their appearances are adapted to the techniques and materials available as well as the standards and the tastes of the society. Again, it is not possible to totally separate the objects from the whole. Thus it might be wrong to call them simple units; they are always associated parts of the complex whole.

How do you observe the connection of the single units?

In our region you can find in every town (at least) a school, a church, a theatre, a train station and other elements. Now you can imagine different compositions: place all these elements in the center of the town, or at its periphery. Maybe the church is next to the school or in another case the theatre is adjacent to the school. In each setting the interaction between the elements will be different; their arrangement is decisive for the character of the town. On a superior level a whole town might be described as a unit. The features of surrounding units – other cities, villages, urban hinterland – influence the examined town. A town and its units cannot be isolated; they are interconnected on several levels.

Where do you see the origin of complexity in town planning?

Town planning agitates at the interface of man, culture, art and technology. Different factors contribute to the complexity: on the one hand there are inhabitants with their needs, on the other hand there is the local climate, the available materials and equipment, the state of technology and also principles such as statics. By only changing one factor, the outcome can be completely different; the interactions of the factors determine complexity. It might be possible to describe the influence of certain factors, however, a single origin of complexity is in most cases not evident.

Where else do you observe complexity?

Ecological systems, the living together of people and social classes, cultures and the climate cross my mind. All examples describe animated and dynamic processes. On the contrary, technological constructs – my oven for example – can be complicated, but not complex. They are the sum of their parts and the features of the whole can be predicted by describing the features of the units.

I understand what you mean. However, are you or specialist able to predict the life span of your oven? Are there not many factors that we do not exactly know but that influence the features of an oven?

So how would you assess complexity?

In my opinion, natural complexity is not only consisting of chaos and coincidence; that would be senseless. Much more likely, complexity is an arrangement of many interwoven components that we are not able to determine. However, that does not mean that it is without an inner logic and organization. The combination of this factors make complexity challenging and fascinating at the same time and the handling of complexity so interesting.