BCSSS

International Encyclopedia of Systems and Cybernetics

2nd Edition, as published by Charles François 2004 Presented by the Bertalanffy Center for the Study of Systems Science Vienna for public access.

About

The International Encyclopedia of Systems and Cybernetics was first edited and published by the system scientist Charles François in 1997. The online version that is provided here was based on the 2nd edition in 2004. It was uploaded and gifted to the center by ASC president Michael Lissack in 2019; the BCSSS purchased the rights for the re-publication of this volume in 200?. In 2018, the original editor expressed his wish to pass on the stewardship over the maintenance and further development of the encyclopedia to the Bertalanffy Center. In the future, the BCSSS seeks to further develop the encyclopedia by open collaboration within the systems sciences. Until the center has found and been able to implement an adequate technical solution for this, the static website is made accessible for the benefit of public scholarship and education.

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EKISTICS 1)2)4)

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The science of human settlements.

Ekistics views any human settlement as a living organism having its own laws and, through the study of the evolution of human settlements from their most primitive phase to megalopolis and ecumenopolis, develops a transdisciplinary approach in order to better manage its problems.

These views were introduced by C.A. DOXIADIS, a greek architect and urbanist, from 1942 on.

The goal of ekistics is to develop a methodology and models to study any kind of human settlements, of any size, location, population and biotope, in order to draw general conclusions in each case.

Ekistics studies each settlement as a whole, integrating all of its elements.

According to DOXIADIS the five elements which compose human settlements are: nature, anthropos (man), society, shells and networks.

Ekistics includes a territorial scale of classification based on the respective areas of territories. The scale starts from the total habitable land area of the planet (about 136 million km Antarctica excluded). It is based on Christaller's hexagonal space filling concept. The scale extends for 17 levels, starting from the total habitable planetary space to the basic unit considered to be 4 m as a minimum requirement for an individual.

Ekistics also includes "population units": Unit 1 being the individual; Unit 2 two individuals; Unit 3 a medium family of 5 members and so on at a logarithmic scale. Each unit is supposed to be 7 times larger than the lesser one.

DOXIADIS also introduced the concept of "ecumenopolis" as the coming planetary organism through which "anthropos"is destined to cover the whole earth as a continuous system forming a universal settlement. This corresponds to the man-planet system as it is presently coming into existence.

→ Biosphere; Eco-cube; Ecological model of the man-planet system; Ecology; Socio-cultural system; Socio-historic system; sociosphere; Sociotechnical macrosystem

Categories

  • 1) General information
  • 2) Methodology or model
  • 3) Epistemology, ontology and semantics
  • 4) Human sciences
  • 5) Discipline oriented

Publisher

Bertalanffy Center for the Study of Systems Science(2020).

To cite this page, please use the following information:

Bertalanffy Center for the Study of Systems Science (2020). Title of the entry. In Charles François (Ed.), International Encyclopedia of Systems and Cybernetics (2). Retrieved from www.systemspedia.org/[full/url]

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