ABSTRACT
This chapter discusses the notion of self-organised criticality of the adaptive perceptual cycle and small world network theory to placemaking. Self-organisation in placemaking has a history that precedes formal small world network theory and its urban application in simulation models of cities illustrated by complexity theory for cities (CTC) protagonists. The notion of self-organised placemaking, particularly in planning cities, was nascent in the ideas of systems theory. Many urban theorists have demonstrated their predilection for placemaking as a biological process. Christopher Alexander was an early experimenter towards an urban design theory based on an idea of the complex lattice like qualities of places through his primal declaration. Alexander claims the process of placemaking as the growth of a living thing intended to emerge wholistically, each urban increment informing the next stage of its growth, similar to the genetic coding information that steers the outcome of an organic entity.
