A graphical way to deal with complexity – or “research by design” and a “designerly way to work with systems”

Students in Systems Oriented Design (SOD) at The Oslo School of Architecture and Design (AHO) published their synthesis maps on “Visions for bio-regional regeneration – graphical complexity for Trondelag region 2040, Norway” in the 2nd edition of the printed SOD Posten journal.

The 29 third year design students’ work from the course “Introduction to Systems Oriented Design” was taught by our team of five teachers, including Birger Sevaldson, Abel Crawford, Andres Wettre, Haley Fitzpatrick, and myself, Tobias Luthe.

The purpose of this course was to learn to handle and design for complex situations on the case of speculating bio-regional futures for the diverse Norwegian region Trondelag, which extends from the sea to the mountains. Students learned to speculate on the base of science, data, and systems mapping. We taught students concepts as guiding principles for their work. i.e. resilience, circularity, regeneration, cross-scale design. Gigamapping and ZIP analysis are SOD tools to identify structure and leverage in a qualitative-graphical way. The outcome in SOD Posten is an attractive array of synthesis maps showing a more regenerative bio-regional future.

Download SOD Posten Issue 2 from 2021 here.

This post relates to a previous post from 2020, were we taught the same course with a little different outline: SOD Posten Issue 1 from 2020