This dissertation builds upon research that considers how cities operate as Complex Adaptive Systems (CAS). It focuses on how certain characteristics of urban form can support an urban environment's capacity to self-organize, enabling emergent features to appear that, while unplanned, remain highly functional. The main thrust of the work is to unpack how elements of the urban fabric might be considered as elements of a complex system and then identify how one might design these elements in a more deliberate manner, such that they hold a greater embedded capacity to respond to changing urban forces. The research is predicated on the notion that, while such responses are both imbricated with, and stewarded by human actors, the specificities of the material characteristics themselves matter. Some forms of material environments hold greater intrinsic physical capacities (or affordances) to enact the kinds of dynamic processes observed in complex systems than others (and can, therefore, be designed with generating these affordances in mind). The Ph.D.'s primary research question is thus: What physical and morphological conditions need to be in place within an urban environment in order for Complex Adaptive Systems dynamics to have an opportunity to arise - such that the physical components (or ‘building blocks') of the urban environment have an enhanced capacity to discover functional configurations in space and time as a response to unfolding contextual conditions? The dissertation is based on a compilation of articles that have, for the most part, been published in academic journals. @en

This article examines the history, use, and significance of the Turkish Tea Garden or Cay Bahcesi, positing that these gardens offer unique democratic spaces for public discourse set within the polis. The article unpacks the historical, cultural, and symbolic features of these gardens, and the role these shared spaces play in Turkey’s multivalent civic environment. It employs Ray Oldenburg’s notion of “third space” to consider how these gardens provide inclusive settings for a culturally diverse citizenry. Furthermore, the article considers how these spaces act as repositories of shared memory, mediating conflict that appears in other societal spheres. The gardens are presented as uniquely “sacred” third spaces, distinct from the “profane” third spaces characterized by Oldenburg.@en

New Urbanism’s disposition towards urban design emphasizes creating places that, in part, derive structure and meaning from ‘imageable’ components. These components resonate with the formal categories articulated by Kevin Lynch. That is to say, New Urbanist projects emphasize defined streets (edges) neighborhood coherence (districts) civic buildings (landmarks) connective public open spaces (nodes) and gridiron street networks (paths). Lynch, however, deemed that such urban features arose from dynamic processes, whereas New Urbanists pre-designate formal features without full consideration of their functional dynamics. In order to better situate this notion of ‘functional dynamics’, this paper argues that urban settings can be considered as examples of complex adaptive systems (CAS). The paper re-purposes Lynch’s formal categories to discuss CAS dynamics in urban settings, with processes rather than forms providing the essential mechanisms with which to achieve the conviviality NU projects aspire to.@en

This paper examines how physical and material properties of the urban fabric help enable the evolution of programmatically coherent spatial districts. It considers how contingent and non-linear processes intertwine to manifest in the unfolding of distinct sites and territories. Drawing concepts and terminology from both evolutionary economic geography and the sciences of complexity, it emphasizes how physically situated morphological traits help underpin urban processes of self-organization and emergence.@en

The article reviews the books "Integral City: Evolutionary Intelligences for the Human Hive," by Marilyn Hamilton, and "City out of Chaos: Urban Self-organization and Sustainability," by Ricardo Pulselli and Enzo Tiezzi.@en