The graphic visualizations of systems dynamics (1956- 74) and its impact on Architecture, Urbanism and Landscape is of interest. Systems dynamics created in 1956 by MIT professor Jay Wright Forrester (1918- 2016) was a rigorous method in which systems theory was applied to a variety of problems via an extensive use of diagrams and computation. Born out of computation and then applied to business and management theory, systems dynamics was later applied to study a variety of timely concerns in the West and beyond. The visuals of systems dynamics displayed diverse types of information together, as such these types of visuals impacted a variety of fields i.e. economics, management, politics, industrialization, environment, housing, population growth etc.

Rather than studying systems dynamics in its extensive entirety, this research focuses on its use in four disparate instances to understand its far reaching implications in the first twenty years since its invention. The fours instances are:

• The use of systems dynamics for low-income housing during the late 1960’s by Forrester and his team at MIT for the department of Housing and Urban Development in Lowell Massachusetts USA.

• The utilization of systems dynamics to study the correlations between population, capital investment, land use, natural resources, and pollution of the world-- referred to as World Dynamics. Initiated by Forrester and The Club of Rome in 1971, World Dynamics was presented at United Nations Conference on the Human Environment,1972, Stockholm. In response to the Stockholm Conference, Systems dynamics was employed to study a variety of topics that dealt with environment at The Club of Rome Meeting in Tokyo 1973.

• In 1974 systems dynamics was used for population studies in Japan by a team of researchers led by architect Kisho Kurokawa.

• Finally, systems dynamics application for a regional/urban proposal in Chieti Italy from the office of Kisho Kurokawa along with a team of various researchers in 1975.

The diagrams of systems dynamics and the broad circulation of such visuals conveyed various principles and their respective proposed outcomes to a broader audience then just planners and architects. Detailed visual analysis and study of the techniques used in system dynamics reveals the ways in which the diagrams were interpreted and how they conveyed notions of certainty, authority, or advancement to evade polemical issues of their respective objects of study. It is suspected that systems dynamics multiple uses and interpretations disrupted stable forms and representations of natural environment, urbanism, and architecture— exposing new ways to gain influence to make such disruptions. As such this research ponders its use that still resonates today.

Institute of Architecture / Ingrid Halland (Supervisor)

PhD started in 2017