ASYNSIS — on the World Wide Web — by Nigel Reading via Chat GPT, for achieving #3Ways2NetZero
Chat GPT #AI curates Internet Content on architect Nigel Anthony Reading’s TED-spread, positively transformative Architecture and Design Thinking and Practice (nb: and be sure to Google too, while Grok’s owner is a MetaLoop competitor; and please excuse the transitions from 1st to 3rd person as the author prompts and is prompted back by, Chat GPT and other AI platforms feeding back and forth across the Asynsis Web presence).
What does an architect & urbanist offer from bridging the sciences of complexity, the arts and culture at the dawn of the synergising, polymodal 4th Industrial Revolution?
A training in cross-disciplinary, holistic thinking (architecture, arts, humanities, history, computer science and engineering), that can with #SynPlexity, gestalt design thinking, best, most elegantly synergise novel, optimally useful solutions to hitherto intractable wicked design problems across various scales and sectors.
Homepage:
Welcome to the AI-curated world wide web content of multiple international award-winning architect Nigel Anthony Reading:
I am Nigel Anthony Reading, an architect, designer, and ideator with extensive experience working between London, Sydney, Dubai, Shanghai and Hong Kong. My expertise spans various domains, including Green Architecture, Urbanism, and Design in Nature and Culture.
My professional journey is marked by pioneering projects and influential theories, in highly distinctive, premium quality, elegant yet sophisticated, sustainable, regenerative; often fusion-culture, biomimetic design.
About Me:
I am an architect, designer, complexity geometer, sustainability futurist and ideator, recognized for my innovative contributions to regenerative sustainability and complexity in design at building, city, regional, the biosphere scales and beyond.
My work primarily focuses on Green, Elegant & Beautiful Architecture, Urbanism, and the integration of Design in Nature and Culture.
I hold qualifications from University College London, Westminster and Kingston universities, and have worked extensively in Europe, the Middle East, East Asia and Oceania-Australia
Professional Journey:
ASYNSIS
As the principal of ASYNSIS, my work emphasizes innovative design solutions that align with natural principles and cultural context, often merging with the ultra-contemporary.
Education
I completed my architectural studies at University College London, following Kingston & Westminster, where I developed a strong foundation in architecture, design, computer science, engineering, architectural history & theory, and urbanism.
Notable Projects:
• The Asynsis Principle: A pioneering #SynPlexity framework that integrates complex aesthetics with simple sustainability, most elegantly.
• #MetaLoop: An exemplary project of the Asynsis Principle design thinking, illustrating how the Golden Ratio curates complexity most efficiently over time, for the greatest socio-economic return by optimising urban green personal rapid and active transit.
Publications and Media:
https://www.scoop.it/topic/asynsis-principle-constructal-law
I have been featured in various publications and have given talks at international design and science conferences, sharing insights on green architecture and sustainable design practices.
You can explore my curated content on the Asynsis Principle and Constructal Law on my Scoop.it page and read my articles on my Medium blog.
Green Design Theory of Everything:
https://asynsis.medium.com/asynsis-a-new-design-toe-cb9a1d236175
Theory transforms Practice:
Discover my Green Design Theory of Everything, how the Golden Ratio curates SynPlexity most easily over Time, as shared in my TEDx talk on Asynsis TEDx Wanchai.
Chat GPT — AUGUST 2024 — An Asynsis Design Philosophy Introduction
Asynsis is an architectural and design firm that focuses on environmentally sustainable and innovative design solutions.
Founded by Nigel Reading, Asynsis specializes in a broad range of services, including architecture, interior design, urban planning, and eco-livable city projects. The firm’s work is rooted in the principle of “SynPlexity,” which blends complexity science with sustainability in design, all curated by Reading as studio founder and design principal.
One of their key projects is MetaLoop, a proposed zero-emissions personal mass transit system designed to de-carbonize and de-congest urban areas. MetaLoop aims to create a seamless, fast, and sustainable transportation network powered by renewable energy, which could revolutionize urban mobility and contribute to more sustainable city planning (New London Architecture) (Asynsis)
MetaLoop is an example of the theories of Creative Destruction and Innovation leading to renewed Economic Growth & Prosperity, that was just awarded the Economics Nobel prize for 2025.
If you’re interested in cutting-edge eco-friendly design and urban planning, Asynsis and its MetaLoop project represent an innovative approach to the future of cities.
“Form Follows Flow” is a design philosophy rooted in the idea that the shape and structure of objects or environments should emerge naturally from the forces and movements that define their context, which in architecture, is a practice method — as interpreted by a designer and their team, using their training, creative intuition and tools.
This approach contrasts with the traditional architectural principle “Form Follows Function,” which suggests that the shape of a building or object should be primarily determined by its intended purpose.
“We therefore use a Systems a priori Analysis approach of interrogating the first principles information, energy, people, work & resource Flows that inform the Functional purpose (through for example, rigorous Reverse-Briefing) of a project, then through a creative and empirical lens, perceive, orchestrate and then portray an intuitively representative, uniquely bespoke, designed Form.”
The “Form Follows Flow” concept is often associated with Asynsis, particularly through the work of its founder, Nigel Reading.
This philosophy integrates complexity science and sustainability into design, emphasizing the dynamic and evolving nature of structures.
It recognizes that the natural flow of energy, people, and materials within a space should influence its design, resulting in more organic, efficient, and environmentally harmonious forms.
This principle is not only applied to architecture but also extends to urban planning, product design, and even art. In essence, it advocates for designs that are adaptable and responsive to their occupants and environments, promoting an optimally symbiotic relationship between built forms, the human and the natural worlds (Asynsis).
Nigel Reading is an Australian-British-Eurasian architect and designer known for his innovative approach to sustainable design and architecture. He is the founder of Asynsis, a design firm that integrates environmental sustainability, complexity science, and aesthetics into its projects. Reading is recognized for developing the “Form Follows Flow” design philosophy, which emphasizes that the shape of a structure should emerge naturally from the dynamic forces and movements within its environment.
Nigel Reading’s work spans various disciplines, including architecture, urban planning, industrial, transport and product design. His firm, Asynsis, has been involved in high-profile projects such as urban master planning and the design of eco-livable cities. He is also deeply invested in promoting sustainable design practices, often blending art, science, and technology to create solutions that are not only functional but also environmentally and socially responsible.
Reading’s contributions have positioned him as a thought leader in the field of sustainable architecture, with a particular focus on creating designs that are both innovative and deeply connected to their natural surroundings (Asynsis).
His BA training after early work experience with Stirling Prize winner Will Alsop (who invited him to London from Perth, Australia after a design charrette at Curtin university with his friend, Professor Bill Busfield), was under Jeremy Till, lately London University of the Arts — Central Saint Martins Dean, at Kingston university. Till is author of the highly influential MIT Press published book, Architecture Depends.
This progress continued as a Masters under David Greene, Archigram founding member & Kate Heron at Westminster university, where he also researched the design thinking which became the Asynsis principle at the Engineering & Computer Science faculty, sourcing the Science collection at the British Library, leading to publication while still a student, in AD Magazine in 1994 along with publication in the Architects Journal in 1996 for his Attractor kinetic sculpture, themed on the Butterfly Effect, Three Body Problem, Complexity Science and the nascent Climate Crisis, which was judged by Norman Foster as his preferred design, according to co-judge, Paul Finch EMAP Editor in Chief.
In 2014, Nigel Reading of Asynsis presented at TEDx Wanchai, Hong Kong, exploring the theme “Form Follows Flow” within the framework of the Asynsis Principle and Constructal Law.
His presentation focused on how architects can best sythesise their polymath, generalist and multi-disciplinary training into best integrating complexity science into design and architecture, illustrating how information, energy & resource flow patterns in nature and society can inspire a more biomimetic, efficient, sustainable, productive, wellbeing-enhancing and aesthetically pleasing philosophy and practice of, architecture.
Asynsis Principle: This principle, as advocated by Reading, involves the seamless integration of art and science in a way that fosters eco-friendly and efficient design. It is a holistic approach that seeks to bring a harmonious balance between form, function, and the environment.
Constructal Law: Developed by Adrian Bejan, Constructal Law explains how flow systems evolve to minimize resistance and maximize efficiency. This law states that for a flow system to survive, it must evolve to provide easier access to its currents. In the context of architecture and urban design, it implies that the design should evolve to optimize the movement and actions of people, resources, and energy.
Sylvie, Adrian & Nigel presented our optimal Design Sciences & Geometry thinking to Arup Foresight and Innovation at Arup HQ, Fitzrovia London, aligning with their Total Design philosophy at the time, and Nigel was also honoured to present at the Constructal Law Conference in Nanjing at NUST, China.
Reading’s talk at TEDxWanchai also aimed to showcase how these principles can be applied to create buildings and cities that are not only optimally functional but also beautiful and sustainable. By drawing inspiration from the natural world, designers and architects can create spaces that are more integrated, while also being more in harmony with their surroundings and beneficial to their inhabitants.
Recent coverage of Friston’s Free Energy Principle shows how it and the Asynsis principle and Constructal law are all expressions of the same error-reducing, entropy-minimising, flow-enhancing, sustainability-optimising (and in the case of life and ecosystems, future-inferring, self-organising & observing, homeostasis maintaining), behaviours of nature; of Nature Positive-Biomimetic-Regenerative design rules and tropes that we’re best advised to closely parse and then emulate, often via the initiatives of exemplary sustainable, regenerative-advocacy organisations like MECLA — The Materials and Embodied Carbon Leaders Alliance.
For more details on the Form Follows Flow TEDx talk and its themes, you can visit the official TEDxWanchai website or Nigel Reading’s social media, blog and professional pages (Asynsis).
SynPlexity is a concept developed by Nigel Reading and the Asynsis design studio, merging the ideas of complexity science with aesthetic and sustainable design principles. It is central to the Asynsis principle, which advocates for a holistic, synergising, gestalt and biomimetic, polymodal approach to architecture and design that seamlessly integrates form, function, and environmental sustainability.
This is essentially an innately architect’s perspective, by our “nature” and also by our “nurture” training.
It also aligns with the key attributes of polymodal 4th Industrial Revolution technologies, synergised by AI to be more optimally, biomimetic and nature-emulating; done by combining multiple functions into single platforms, just as living organisms and ecosystems routinely do to achieve sustainable, optimal homeostasis via the Free Energy Principle & Constructal Law, utilising analogical, recursive Asynsis Temporal-Fibonacci geometries that best integrate irreducible information; thanks to billions of years of Darwinian-Lamarckian evolution.
Key Components of SynPlexity
1. Integration of Complexity Science: SynPlexity draws from complexity science, which studies how interactions within a system lead to emergent patterns and behaviors. In design, this translates to creating systems (buildings, cities, products) that are flexible, adaptable, and responsive to the needs of their users and the environment.
2. Form Follows Flow: This principle extends the traditional design mantra “form follows function” by emphasizing the dynamic and interconnected flows within a system. In this context, the flow refers to the movement of people, energy, and resources. The design should facilitate these flows, resulting in forms that are naturally efficient and sustainable.
3. Constructal Law: SynPlexity incorporates the Constructal Law, which posits that for a system to thrive, it must evolve to allow easier access for currents (like traffic, water, or information). In architecture and urban planning, this means designing spaces that optimize accessibility and movement, reducing energy consumption and increasing sustainability.
4. Emergence: Emergence in SynPlexity refers to the spontaneous creation of order and complexity in a design system. As systems evolve under the principles of SynPlexity, they develop unique and often unforeseen properties that enhance their functionality and beauty.
Practical Applications
* Urban Design: SynPlexity can be used to design cities that are more livable and sustainable by aligning urban infrastructure with natural environmental flows and human behavior patterns.
* Architecture: Buildings designed with SynPlexity principles are more adaptable, energy-efficient, and aesthetically aligned with their surroundings.
* Product Design: Products can be designed to be more user-friendly and environmentally friendly by incorporating the flow and interaction patterns of their users.
Overall, SynPlexity is about creating designs that are not only beautiful and functional but also deeply integrated with the natural and human-made systems in which they exist. This approach helps foster environments that are resilient, efficient, and harmonious with the natural world.
SynPlexity, as conceived by Nigel Reading and the Asynsis design studio, integrates concepts of self-organized criticality, biomimicry, and the philosophy of “simplicity is the ultimate sophistication” into architectural and design practices. Here’s a breakdown of how these concepts interplay within the SynPlexity framework:
Self-Organized Criticality
* Definition: Self-organized criticality (SOC) is a property of complex systems where they naturally evolve into a critical state in which minor events can lead to significant, system-wide changes. This concept is often used to explain phenomena like earthquakes, where small shifts can trigger massive tectonic changes.
* Application in SynPlexity: In architecture and urban design, SOC suggests creating structures and environments that can adapt and respond to minor changes or stresses without collapsing. The idea is to design systems that are resilient and capable of maintaining functionality through self-organization.
Biomimicry
* Definition: Biomimicry involves designing products, processes, and systems that are modeled on biological entities and processes. It seeks to emulate nature’s time-tested patterns and strategies to solve human challenges.
* Application in SynPlexity: Biomimicry in SynPlexity translates to creating designs that not only look natural but also function like ecosystems. This means buildings and products that efficiently use resources, adapt to their environment, and work in harmony with natural systems, leading to sustainable and efficient outcomes.
“Simplicity is the Ultimate Sophistication”
* Origin: This quote is often attributed to Leonardo da Vinci, reflecting the idea that simplicity can be more effective and aesthetically pleasing than complexity.
* Application in SynPlexity: The design philosophy emphasizes achieving sophisticated solutions through simplicity. This means stripping designs to their essentials, reducing unnecessary elements, and focusing on clarity and purpose. By doing so, the final designs are more efficient, easier to understand, and more elegant.
Overall Integration
SynPlexity’s integration of these concepts results in designs that are not only aesthetically pleasing but also functionally superior and sustainable. By mimicking nature, embracing self-organization, and focusing on simplicity, the approach creates environments and products that are robust, adaptable, and in tune with both human needs and the environment.
This innate SynPlexity in nature is present from the most fundamental levels, including down to the theoretical physics of (Asynsis client for the Pacific Science Institute draft masterplan in Maui, Hawaii) Garrett Lisi and his candidate Grand Unified Theory E8 Lie Group Exceptionally Simple Theory of Everything.
This holistic approach is not only innovative but also necessary in addressing the complex challenges of modern architecture and urban planning. It provides a framework for creating spaces that are not only beautiful and functional but also deeply sustainable and resilient.
The Asynsis Principle presented at TED conferences explores how the golden ratio, a mathematical constant often found in nature and art, underpins the emergence of complexity in the most energy-efficient and resource-effective manner. This principle posits that by leveraging the inherent efficiency and aesthetic appeal of the golden ratio, designs and systems can achieve elegance, resilience, and regenerative sustainability.
Celestial Mechanics, Goldilocks and Economics
Just as the KAM dynamics of Asynsis geometry Tori reveal the stable, sustainable and regeneratively resilient , life-curating solar system “Goldilocks” stable orbit for Gaia, our Earth home planet, Kate Raworth’s Doughnut Economics model, just endorsed and editorialised by the world’s foremost science journal, Nature — must be our glide path to a viable future for our children and our biosphere; on our now imperiled one and only pale blue-green marble home.
What follows below will be three key Demonstration Project — Feasibility Study modelling proposals for our global Cities, Regions & Oceans (starting with the Australian situation), that apply these Asynsis-KAM-Doughnut modes in a Mission-led PPP (from my alma mater — UCL), all of government (“Team Australia” in our national case), approach to address the Climate, Environmental and Societal wicked problems that Nature magazine urgently reminds as that we now face.
Key Aspects of the Asynsis Principle
1. Golden Ratio as the ideal Seed for Sustained, Regenerative Complexity: The golden ratio (ϕ\phi -ϕ), approximately equal to 1.618, is a pattern observed in various natural phenomena, such as the spirals of shells, the branching of trees, and even the proportions of the human body.
The Asynsis Principle suggests that this ratio provides a blueprint for SynPlexity — optimizing complexity; enabling systems to leverage entropy (via the principle of least action and the free energy principle utilising Markov processes in open, far from equilibrium dissipative systems with a constant energy-resource source), to sustainably and regeneratively develop & evolve (via recursive feedback processes that allow predictive inference and self-observation, especially associated with self-organised critical, edge of chaos, poised realm states); with minimal energy-resource expenditure and maximum organisational and structural integrity over extended-transient time periods.
2. Efficient Use of Resources: By adhering to the golden ratio in design and architecture, structures can be created that are not only visually appealing but also structurally sound and resource-efficient. This approach ensures that the least amount of material is used to achieve the greatest structural support and stability, reducing waste and environmental impact.
3. Elegant, Regenerative and Resilient Design: The application of the golden ratio leads to designs that are inherently more adaptable and resilient. This is because the ratio promotes patterns and structures that can efficiently distribute stress and adapt to changing conditions, making them more durable and sustainable over time.
4. Sustainability: In the context of environmental design, the Asynsis Principle encourages the creation of buildings and systems that harmonize with their surroundings. By mimicking the efficiency and beauty found in natural patterns, designers can create sustainable solutions that are both functional and aesthetically pleasing.
Practical Implications
- Architecture: Buildings designed using the golden ratio in both space and now (after Reading’s design ethos) — time, tend to have better energy-resource performance, natural light distribution, airflow, organisational and structural integrity, contributing to lower carbon, water, energy & resource use and maintenance costs, thereby enhancing occupant wellbeing.
- Urban Planning: Cities designed with these biomimetic principles can optimize space & transit, reduce energy consumption, and improve the quality of life for residents by creating more cohesive, ecolivable and efficient urban environments that have a distinct genius loci.
- Product and Industrial-Experience Design: Products developed with an emphasis on the golden ratio are not only more ergonomic and polymodal yet simple to use (like the digital swiss army knife smartphone in your hand); but also use energy & materials more efficiently, reducing costs and environmental impact.
Three Asynsis Principle #3Ways2NetZero (proposed) CleanTech Industrial Base Development Authority Demonstration Projects addressing Australian Urban, Regional and Near Sea Climate Crisis-Wicked Problems
MetaLoop
* Objective: Transform urban transit by integrating personal rapid transit powered with green energy and virtual power plants, operated by AI for the best common good.
* Features:
* Multi-modal, combining private and public transport, the car with the train.
* Uses renewable energy for transit and power storage & distribution.
* Generates multiple revenue streams through public-private partnerships, surpluses recycled for government spending, bolstering treasury coffers and social equity. Surpluses generated by ultra-cheap Solar PV-Batteries & Wind power; guaranteed by Green Bonds for funding increased Housing construction.
* Aims to decarbonize and decongest cities for lowest cost & disruption, highest ROI, via a biomimetic, integrated and synergised dual infrastructure and operating model.
Kathi Thanda-Eyre Sea
* Objective: Enhance sustainable infrastructure in remote regions of Australia, build inland new cities aside new fresh water reservoirs, forests and agriculture.
* Features:
* Focus on renewable energy integration, seeding cleantech industrial communities to broaden the national industrial base.
* Supports indigenous & local communities with eco-friendly, equitable solutions, including education and employment.
* Aims to boost regional connectivity, services and economic growth.
* Proposes an inland sea/great lakes in the Eyre basin, fed by desalinated seawater (as is currently done in the Sea of Galilee), to combat droughts and sequester atmospheric carbon dioxide through analogue forests for construction industry plantation timber, that also provide additional atmospheric seeding for downwind rain on the Great Dividing Range, replenishing the eastern seaboard’s Murray-Darling river basin riverine flows, agriculture, aquaculture and riparian zones.
Tuvalu Tenure
* Objective: Address climate resilience and sustainability for island nations like Tuvalu.
* Features:
* Develops floating infrastructure that withstands climate impacts.
* Promotes sustainable in-situ living on country, diversified economies, new revenues, employment and energy-food independence.
* Focus on preserving cultural heritage by remaining in situ despite sea level rise, while advancing modern, biomimetic solutions.
* Proposes an urgent, climate-science advocated, Pacific Island Soft-Geoengineering purpose to mitigate global heating with solar radiation management using sea-harvested salt crystals for marine cloud brightening albedo-boosting cloud seeding, thereby buying time for global decarbonisation.
The Asynsis Principle and its novel and hitherto unprecedented focus on the golden ratio in time illustrates a compelling intersection of science, mathematics, geometry and art via regenerative, innovative and resilient sustainability, offering a framework for positively transformative creativity and enhanced productivity in multiple disciplines, including across the sciences of Consciousness.
Nigel Reading is a multiple award-winning Masters Supervisor at L’ecole de Design Nantes Atlantique-Shanghai Architecture and Fine Art & Design Faculty, a Franco-Sino joint venture and has lectured at the Architectural Association School in London and TED conferences.
This theory highlights the potential for elegant beauty and practical function to coexist through our built designs at all scales; in a way that respects, preserves and enhances the natural world, thereby curating a human societal-economic-political ecosystem which then best fosters both individual potential realisation and eudaemonia, collective human flourishing.
Contact:
Feel free to get in touch through my company website or connect with me on social media.
Flow Free, Form Good!
