Cities as Collective Beings

Abstract

This article introduces the concepts of System, Autonomous System, Intelligent System, Multiple System, and Collective Being. It deals with issues related to managing these different levels of systemic aggregation. The author then discusses applications related to Architecture and design with particular reference to cities.

KEYWORDS:

• Architecture
• Autonomous System
• cities
• Collective Beings
• Intelligent System
• Multiple System
• System

Notes

1. A cognitive model may, in short, be considered, in a computational view, as a schema, a program, in order to represent and process input then transformed into information(Allen, 1990).

2. The concept of level of description refers, for instance, to:

• the micro-, meso-and macro-scopic level assumed by the observer;

• the disciplinary knowledge assumed by the observer for dealing with the phenomenon. In a non-systemic approach a phenomenon(e.g., an illness, a behavior, a corporate problem) is considered, for instance, related to biology or chemistry or physics or psychology or economics. In a systemic approach the different levels of disciplinary knowledge are considered in a non-exclusive way and, simultaneously and/or dynamically, depending on the problem and on the approach ideated in a constructivistic way by the observer;

• the cognitive model assumed by the observer.