73 | Futurity
Simple solutions for complex issues Challenges for future designers Di Fang, ABT (Oosterhoff Group)
Am I the only one who feels that this world is getting overcomplicated, and simplicity is being missed? New systems are made to improve old systems, new technologies are invented to fix problems caused by old technologies, and our world finally becomes a patchwork without elegance. We human beings get so distracted by complications, and simplicity becomes unreachable. For me, the challenge that lies in the future is how to deal with complexity. Being a good designer means more than ever how to find simple solutions for complex issues, from building level to urban level. The complex world This article has been written during the outbreak of the Corona Virus - a disease that was defined as a pandemic by the WHO in early March 2020. The virus hit China hard at the end of 2019. After three months, while China is getting its domestic situation under control and after implementing strict containment, Europe is expected to become the next epicentre of this pandemic. However, it seems that the example of China did not warn Europe enough. Multiple countries failed to take and swiftly implement early measures, which has resulted in the steep curves of growing patients. Until this very moment (March 20th, 2020), the same mistake is being made repeatedly on the world stage. In this particular case, taking measures involves all kinds of aspects, and requires going through multiple layers of social and political systems; systems that were initially invented to improve our society. It is a living example, highlighting just how trapped people are by this complicated system1 that they invented themselves while trying to make a rational decision. Similarly, this can generally be predicted to happen in the future as well. Our system is getting so complicated that we can hardly see through it. It is getting more difficult for
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us to make a proactive decision. Thus, we are mostly just like in the situation of Coronavirus - reacting, rather than getting ahead of the “curve.” The author of the renowned book <The black swan>, Nassim Nicholas Taleb, described the paradox of ‘complex systems’ in his book <Antifragile>;
“……Man-made complex systems tend to develop cascades and runaway chains of reactions that decrease, even eliminate, predictability and cause outsized events. So the modern world may be increasing in technological knowledge, but, paradoxically, it is making things a lot more unpredictable. Now for reasons that have to do with the increase of the artificial, the move away from ancestral and natural models, and the loss in robustness owing to complications in the design of everything, the role of Black Swans2 is increasing……” (Taleb, N.N. 2012. Antifragile: things that gain from disorder. Random House & Penguin Books)
