Nikos Salingaros

Nikos Salingaros
Born	1952 (age 71–72) Perth,Australia
Nationality	Australian
Alma mater	Stony Brook University
Scientific career
Institutions	University of Texas at San Antonio
Thesis	Certain algebraic structures and their applications to physics(1978)

Nikos Angelos Salingaros(Greek:Νίκος Άγγελος Σαλίγκαρος;born 1952) is amathematicianandpolymathknown for his work onurban theory,architectural theory,complexity theory,anddesign philosophy.He has been a close collaborator of the architectChristopher Alexander,with whom Salingaros shares a harsh critical analysis of conventionalmodern architecture.Like Alexander, Salingaros has proposed an alternative theoretical approach to architecture and urbanism that is more adaptive to human needs and aspirations, and that combines rigorous scientific analysis with deep intuitive experience.

Salingaros published substantive research on algebras, mathematical physics, electromagnetic fields, and thermonuclear fusion before turning his attention to architecture and urbanism. Salingaros still teaches mathematics, and is Professor of Mathematics at theUniversity of Texas at San Antonio.He is also on the Architecture faculties of universities inItaly,Mexico,andThe Netherlands.

Personal

Born toGreekparents, Salingaros is the only child of the popular composer Stelios Salingaros; he is also the nephew of the operatic baritone Spyros Salingaros(Greek:Σπύρος Σαλίγκαρος).

Education

Salingaros began working in the arts as a painter, but soon switched to the sciences. He obtained a bachelor's degree in physics from theUniversity of Miami,Florida. He took his Master's in 1974 and Doctorate in 1978 at theState University of New Yorkat Stony Brook. In 1982, he started a long-term collaboration with Christopher Alexander, becoming one of the editors ofThe Nature of Order,Alexander's four-volume masterwork on aesthetics and the geometric processes of nature.

Career

Salingaros joined the Mathematics faculty of the University of Texas at San Antonio in 1983, where he remains today. In the 1990s, Salingaros began to publish his own research on architectural and urban form. In 1997 he was recipient of the first award ever by the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation for research on architectural topics. In 2003, he was elected to the Committee of Honor,International Network for Traditional Building, Architecture & Urbanism (INTBAU),and to the INTBAU College of Traditional Practitioners.

Writings

Salingaros' writings helped to introduce two key concepts in urban morphology,fractalsand networks. His bookPrinciples of Urban Structurehas been compared to that ofMichael Batty(United Kingdom) andPierre Frankhauser(France) in describing cities as giant fractals, and the separate efforts ofPaul Drewe(Holland) andGabriel Dupuy(France) in describing cities as giant networks. His work links urban form to new concepts such as thesmall-world networkand thescale-free network.Michael Batty, Bartlett Professor of Planning at University College London, wrote about Salingaros' contribution: "He shows how networks which evolve from the bottom up lead to ordered (scaled) hierarchies that are both efficient and well adjusted.… This is the theory of the small world, but contained within, there is the germ of an idea which has barely been exploited. In connecting elements in cities, there is a natural ordering from many short links which aggregate to a lesser number of longer links which, in my view, could be linked to small worlds, to scale-free networks, to power law distributions and, more significantly, to changes in transportation technology. Salingaros is the first to hint at this."

A Theory of Architecture,a collection of previously published papers, describes a set of guidelines for design, giving scientific principles that link forms to human sensibilities. In it he describes a practical architectural system in a form that any practicing architect can use. The work incorporates Salingaros' observations of the greatest buildings of the past, which he defines as those that are the most responsive to human sensibilities. While this method and its theoretical underpinning supporttraditional architecturaltypologies, Salingaros emphasizes that architects should be free to adapt their ideas to particular situations, leaving decisions to be influenced by the environment and needs of the project. He explores questions such as: How can ornament be justified, and why is it necessary? What are the ratios and hierarchies that promote neighborliness and beauty? What is it about our biological nature – perhaps even about the nature of matter itself – that makes us feel one thing in the presence of one kind of structure and something else in the presence of another? Speaking as a mathematician, he proposes a theoretical framework to answer these questions.

Anti-Architecture and Deconstructionis a collection of essays written as a polemic against contemporary "star" architecture, and its supporters within architectural academia and the architectural media. It is an impassioned indictment against the "bad architecture" that he argues has been promoted by their actions. Salingaros defines "bad architecture" as that which makes people uncomfortable or physically ill, and which pursues formal or ideological concerns instead of adapting to nature and to the needs of ordinary human beings.

"Social Housing in Latin America: A Methodology to Utilize Processes of Self-Organization", by Nikos Salingaros, David Brain,Andrés Duany,Michael Mehaffy,and Ernesto Philibert, outlined the role of socio-spatial relations in guaranteeing a successful built environment.The principal urbanist problem facing the world today concerns the socio-political processes in the planning and construction of social housing, as well as the large-scale renovation of favelas. This paper identified urban space that is loved by its inhabitants, enough to be defended against encroachment and degradation, as a crucial concept. The criterion is an emotional one, and arises from the correct satisfaction of the residents' emotional needs through the appropriate urban morphology, which is in turn created only through user participation (in a bottom-up process guided by an NGO representative). This successful type of urban space rarely arises from the typologies of post-war planning.

Salingaros' newer writings focus onbiophiliaas an essential component of the design of the human environment, thus joining the ideas ofEdward Osborne WilsontoSustainable design.

Influence

Architecture

Salingaros has had a significant theoretical influence on several major figures in architecture. Christopher Alexander, author of the seminal treatisesA Pattern LanguageandNotes on the Synthesis of Form,describes Salingaros' influence: "In my view, the second person who began to explore the deep connection between science and architecture was Nikos Salingaros, one of the fourKatarxiseditors. He had been working with me helping me edit material inThe Nature of Order,for years, and at some point—in the mid-nineties I think—began writing papers looking at architectural problems in a scientific way. Then by the second half of the nineties he began making important contributions to the building of this bridge, and to scientific explorations in architecture which constituted a bridge. "

Charles III,an influential critic of contemporary architecture, expressed Salingaros' influence in his own preface to Salingaros'A Theory of Architecture:"Surely no voice is more thought-provoking than that of this intriguing, perhaps historically important, new thinker?"

Tall buildings

The End of Tall Buildings(2001), co-authored withJames Kunstler,argued that the age of skyscrapers is at an end, and that 9/11 marks the beginning of the end of modernist typologies dominating urban form. While the world has not stopped building skyscrapers, this became one of the most cited and controversial essays on the topic. Referring to this essay, Benjamin Forgey ofThe Washington Postsaid: "What many are feeling today goes right to the marrow: the fear of being a target. And who today can deny that tall buildings such as the World Trade Center towers make ideal targets?"

Urbanism

Salingaros contributed to the New Athens Charter of 2003, which is meant to replace the original 1933Athens Charterwritten principally by the highly influential modernist architect-plannerLe Corbusier.That blueprint segregated urban functions and contributed to generating post-war urban typologies such as monoculture and sprawl. Through this and other writings Salingaros sought to retrofit suburbia, and reconnect US and European cities at the human scale. This work can be seen as allied with theNew Urbanismmovement to replace sprawling development with compact, walkable cities and towns.

Salingaros is involved in forming a community that applies analogous techniques ofFile sharingandOpen-sourcesoftware from computer science to urbanism. This movement, based uponPeer-to-peerprinciples, is aptly calledP2P Urbanism,and combines user participation in design and the use ofDesign PatternsfromChristopher Alexanderwith other methods found useful in handling complex software. A description, definition, and recent articles are published on the website of theFoundation for Peer to Peer Alternatives.

Computer science

Salingaros has never written a true software paper, yet two of his papers are quoted by the CS community. Both these papers were later included as chapters in the bookPrinciples of Urban Structure.

The Structure of Pattern Languages(2000)argues that patterns (a concept central to the design pattern movement in CS and introduced by Alexander) encapsulate information about recurring design solutions and human activities. Techniques for linking observed patterns validate aPattern language,and dismiss stylistic rules and antipatterns as arbitrary. E. Todd, E. Kemp and C. Phillips commented: "Salingaros shows that a loose collection of patterns is not a system, because it lacks connections, implying that the quality and nature of the connections between patterns is what determines whether a collection is a language or not. He identifies two forms of connectivity when discussing pattern languages: external connectivity and internal connectivity. These two forms of connection are central to validating a pattern language. Salingaros implies that the richness of connections between levels and within levels in a pattern language is a factor in determining a language’s internal validity."

The Information Architecture of Cities(co-authored with L. Andrew Coward, 2004) Ref.describes cities as systems of informational architecture, in which high-level functionality separates the system into communicating modules. Information exchange in urban systems includes visual input from the environment, personal contact, telecommunications, and the movement of people. Journeys by residents through a city accomplish a primary information exchange (the interaction that is the intent of the journey). But ideally, journeys have secondary, serendipitous information exchange. For example, a pedestrian on the way to work visits shops, sees advertisements, buys a newspaper, encounters a friend and has a quick word. The virtue of cities is this dense, fractal, multilayered information exchange. It is closely related to the generation of economic wealth and culture within cities.

In "The Information Architecture of Cities" Salingaros also defined the useful notion of "fractal loading", later picked up byRichard Veryard,Phil Jones,and others in Computer Science.

Complexity

Salingaros introduced a model ofComplexityby using an analogy with thermodynamic quantities in physics, later developed in collaboration with the Computer Scientist Allen Klinger. This work adopted the notion ofHerbert A. Simonthat what is important is the organization of complexity, and it proposed a simple means to measure it.Christopher Alexanderdiscussed Salingaros' model in Book 1 ofThe Nature of Order:"I believe it is important to show this result simply to underline the fact that living structure is, in principle, susceptible to mathematical treatment, and may therefore be regarded as a part of physics."

Philosophy

Salingaros has been a harsh critic ofdeconstructivismin architecture, and its uncritical application of the philosophy ofpost-structuralism.His essay "The Derrida Virus"argues that the ideas of the French philosopherJacques Derrida,applied in an uncritical way, effectively form an information "virus" that dismantles logical thought and knowledge. Salingaros employs themememodel earlier introduced byRichard Dawkinsto explain the transmission of ideas. In so doing he provides a model that validates earlier claims by philosopherRichard Wolinthat Derrida's philosophy is logically nihilistic. Even though Salingaros uses Dawkins' ideas, he nevertheless strongly disagrees with Dawkins' evaluation of religion as just another meme, as expounded in Dawkins' bookThe God Delusion.Supporting Alexander's most recent work tying religion to geometry, Salingaros argues for the important historic contribution of religious tradition to human understanding, both in architecture and in philosophy.

General

Salingaros has been included in "50 VISIONARIES who are changing your world", published in the November–December 2008 edition ofUtne Reader.This is the first follow-up of the 2001 Utne Reader book "(65) VISIONARIES: people and ideas to change your life", which includedJane Jacobs,Andrés Duany,Elizabeth Plater-Zyberk,Muhammad Yunus,Fritjof Capra,Edward Goldsmith,andWilliam McDonough.

Bibliography

• "The Derrida Virus".Telos126 (Winter 2003). New York: Telos Press.
• Anti-Architecture and Deconstruction(2004; 2nd Ed 2007)
• Principles of Urban Structure(2005)
• A Theory of Architecture(2006)
• The Future of Cities(in press 2007)

See also

• Urban morphology § Morphogenetic School

External links

• Nikos A. Salingaros: Papers on Architecture, Complexity, Patterns, and Urbanism
• International Society of Biourbanism (ISB)
• Michael Blowhard interviews Nikos Salingaros
• Manner of Man Magazine interview Nikos Salingaros
• Nikos Salingaros interviews Leon Krier
• NPR panel discussion on saving the TWA terminal at Kennedy Airport
• International Network for Traditional Building, Architecture & Urbanism (INTBAU)
• Lakis Polykarpou interviews James Howard Kunstler and Nikos Salingaros