Complex Design for Vulnerability and Risk in Megacities

Abstract

This article proposes methodological criteria for addressing complexity in the prevention of vulnerability and risk in megacities. Starting from the argument that many disciplines are needed in a designer’s education, and that the issue of disciplinary integration is not a trivial one, it then critiques the excesses resulting from the combination of forms of knowledge with dissimilar and even antagonistic epistemic approaches. To face the challenge of cognitive overload, this article proposes using a complexity approach to generate disciplinary convergence in addressing emergent risk phenomena based on ontological, epistemological and methodological principles, criteria and assumptions. Finally, it puts forward a proposal for addressing vulnerability and risk through complexity, describing its challenges and limitations.