*Please distribute to others who may be interested...* You are hereby invited to the next weekly seminar in our interdisciplinary series on Evolution, Complexity and Cognition<http://ecco.vub.ac.be/?q=node/108>(ECCO) and theGlobal Brain Institute<http://www.globalbraininstitute.org/>(GBI).
*Time*:* Friday, May 10th, *14:00-16:00 p.m *Place*: *Room 3B217 * (building B, level 3, From the elevator take the long corridor to the right, to its end), on the VUB Campus Etterbeek (Pleinlaan 2, 1050 Brussels), Free entrance: everybody welcome! ------------------------------ ** Embedding the Evolutionary Potential of Complex Adaptive Systems into the Structure of Urban Fabric *Sharon Ackerman (TU Delft)* Abstract: Over the last number of decades urban geographers have begun to look to Complex Adaptive Systems theory to help them understand the dynamics of cities. This interest has been channeled into both computer simulation models (Batty, Portugali) of cities as well as studies that discuss complexity metaphorically - theorizing on how cities are the resultant manifestation of complex relations of flows (Urry, Massey, Thrift). My research departs from both these trajectories, exploring instead how acts of physical urban design can seed the potential for cities to self-organize into productive emergent neighborhoods without the need for top-down control. Here the focus is upon the latent capacity of the urban fabric itself to act as a carrier of processes that supports adaptation, signaling, processing information, and exploring the fitness landscape. I argue that some forms of urban fabric are more adept at enabling these processes then others, and that armed with this understanding the role of designers and planners can shift from trying to direct and control the evolution of cities, to instead creating the morphological infrastructure that will itself harness evolutionary processes. The Speaker: Sharon Ackerman holds a Master’s Degree in Architecture and has worked as an architect with award winning 5468796 Architecture<http://www.5468796.ca/>and as an Urban Designer with Cohlmeyer Architecture in Winnipeg. She has taught at both the graduate and undergraduate level in the Faculty of Architecture, University of Manitoba and is currently working on her PhD at TU Delft, within the Spatial Planning division. She has presented her research at various international conferences in Liverpool, Delft, Boston, Brussels and Istanbul. ------------------------------ * Forthcoming ECCO/GBI seminars* *Summer 2013* *May 17 *Francis Heylighen (GBI,VUB) Foundations for a Mathematical Model of the Global Brain * May 24 *Evo Busseniers (GBI VUB) Simulating the Global Brain with MATLAB * May 27 (Monday) *Clement Vidal <http://clement.vidal.philosophons.com>(GBI,VUB) TBD * May 31 *Marko Rodriguez <http://markorodriguez.com/> Faunus: Cluster-Oriented Graph Analytics * June 7 *David Garcia Collective Emotions in the Internet Society * June 14 *Pierpaolo Andriani Modular Exaptation - Research policy <http://ecco.vub.ac.be/?q=node/203> * June 21 *Wolfgang Hofkirchner Global consciousness – the global brain in the perspective of a global sustainable information society * June 28 *Clement Vidal <http://clement.vidal.philosophons.com>(GBI,VUB) Distributing Cognition: from Local Brains to the Global Brain * July 5 * *NO SEMINAR * *July 12 *Marie-Lise Schläppy <[email protected]> (Ecole Polytechnique Fédérale Lausanne) Are all gifted people also highly sensitive? <http://ecco.vub.ac.be/?q=node/204> More info about the ECCO seminar program: http://ecco.vub.ac.be/?q=node/108 -- David R. Weinbaum (Weaver) ECCO/GBI Seminar Coordinator Email: [email protected] http://clea.academia.edu/DavidWeinbaum
