Patterns in nature, emergent urbanism and the implicate order

Abstract

This research is about the scientific understanding of the concept of "life" in urban space and its main purpose is to explain the underlying order that is present in organic cities. It was found that this order is emergent (bottom-up),a product of a self-organization, a fractal geometry that characterizes the geometries of Nature which is substantially different from the visual order (top-down) we are used to look at our cities.The biological metaphor in city planning has been used since the sixteenth century. However, this analogy has been made mainly because of its shape and appearance rather than by the investigation of their geometric properties and laws of formation. Checking the parallel between the geometries of Nature and the geometries of the organic city, through the recognition of a set of patterns and emergent properties I conclude with this work that these forms and structures emerge for the same reason: the constraints of physical space and the laws of nature are the same everywhere. Thesefundamental lawswhich governall live-systems phenomena showthat in spite of apparently amorphous growth of urban sprawl, resilient patterns emerge. Once we know the principles we can use them to improve our plans and designs. We shouldtrust to the self-organizingprinciples of cities rather than impose ideas of what theyshould look like.