Confluences of Systemic Design: A historical exploration of interdisciplinary influences

Jeremy Swartz and Ben Sweeting

This contribution delves into historical roots and precursors of systemic design, examining the interdisciplinary influences that have shaped its development. By investigating the relationships between systems thinking, science, and philosophy, we aim to provide a richer context for systemic design. We explore intellectual precursors to the work of the 1940s and 1950s, focusing on the diverse disciplines that contributed to the emergence of systems research. The exploration includes an array of scholars and practitioners, organized into heuristic themes that encompass both direct influences and major developments that paved the way for systemic thinking in the 20th century.

Attempts to map the history and lineages of complexity, cybernetics, and systems have often revolved around a foundational period in the 1940s and 1950s. This period is often marked by the work of various committees, conferences, institutes, projects, and societies. These organizations contributed to the formation of interrelated disciplines and fields, including cybernetics, decision sciences, machine learning, natural and artificial intelligence, neural networks, sustainability, system dynamics, and systems engineering. Tracing the roots of these developments further back in history can help clarify the complex sets of overlapping fields and terminologies within systems disciplines.

To contextualize transdisciplinary frameworks, we propose a series of heuristic themes that encompass both direct influences and major developments that paved the way for the type of systemic approaches that emerged in the 1940s and 1950s: mathematics and logic, physics and thermodynamics, biology and evolution, philosophy and psychology, the arts and social reform.

By highlighting an indicative list of scholars born from 1800 onwards, we explore the intellectual context in which cybernetics and systems approaches arose. While the relationship between architecture/design and cybernetics/systems is often discussed in the context of explicit collaborations from the 1960s onwards, investigating earlier periods may reveal additional, less linear connections. 

We argue that understanding the historical context of systemic design can help practitioners and researchers appreciate the complexity and depth of the field. Recognizing the contributions of various disciplines and historical periods could help support transdisciplinary approaches to systemic design, possibly leading to thrivability.

Jeremy Swartz is founder of Metamedia at the University of Oregon. Swartz’s research focuses on curation as care, repair and melioration. Swartz teaches communication, media law and ethics, and strategic design at Southern Oregon University. Swartz co-edited two volumes on transdisciplinary inquiry, MEDIA and LIFE. Swartz is co-director and curator of the What is…? series at UO Portland and vice-chair of the Environmental Impact Committee for the International Association for Media and Communication Research.

Ben Sweeting teaches architecture and design at the University of Brighton. Sweeting’s research is concerned with ways in which cybernetics intersects with architecture and design. Sweeting is founding Editor-in-Chief of the journal, Enacting Cybernetics, published by the Cybernetics Society, and serves as an editorial advisor to the proceedings of Relating Systems Thinking and Design (RSD). Sweeting is part of the Radical Methodologies Research Group at Brighton, who hosted RSD11.

1. Bush, V. ([1970] 2022). Pieces of the action (2nd ed.). Stripe Press.
2. Capra, F., & Luisi, P. L. ([2014] 2020). Vita e natura: Una visione sistemica. Aboca Edizioni.
3. Castellani, B., & Gerrits, L. (2024). The atlas of social complexity. Edward Elgar Publishing.
4. Collopy, F. (2019). Why the failure of systems thinking should inform the future of design thinking. Design Issues, 35(2): 97–100. https://doi.org/10.1162/desi_a_00538
5. da Costa Junior, J., Diehl, J. C., & Snelders, D. (2019). A framework for a systems design approach to complex societal problems. Design Science, 5, e2. https://doi.org/10.1017/dsj.2018.16 
6. Dixon, B., Eklund, A. R., & Wegener, F. (2023). Introduction: Pragmatism, Dewey, and design inquiry. Design Issues, 39(4): 3–8. https://doi.org/10.1162/desi_e_00733
7. Dubberly, H., & Pangaro, P. (2015). How cybernetics connects computing, counterculture, and design. In A. Blauvelt (Ed.), Hippie modernism: The struggle for utopia. Walker Art Center.
8. Fischer, T., & Herr, C. M. (Eds.) (2019). Design cybernetics: Navigating the new. Springer.
9. Floridi, L. (2014). The fourth revolution: How the infosphere is reshaping human reality. Oxford University Press.
10. Frieling, R. (Ed.) (2008). The art of participation: 1950 to Now. San Francisco Museum of Modern Art in association with Thames & Hudson.
11. Giaccardi, E., Redström, J., & Nicenboim, I. (2024). The making(s) of more-than-human design: Introduction to the special issue on more-than-human design and HCI. Human–Computer Interaction, 1-16. https://doi.org/10.1080/07370024.2024.2353357 
12. Goodbun, J. (2017). The cell, the field, and the tower: The spaces of ecological cybernetics. In A. Rumpfhuber (Ed.), Into the Great Wide Open (pp. 78-101). DPR.
13. Green, S. (2022), Philosophy of systems and synthetic biology. In E. N. Zalta (Ed.), The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Summer ed.), Metaphysics Research Lab, Stanford University, https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/systems-synthetic-biology/
14. Hammond, D. (2016). Philosophical foundations of systems research. In M. C. Edson,  P. B. Henning, & S. Sankaran (Eds.). A guide to systems research: Philosophy, processes and practice (pp. 1–21). Springer.
15. Hieronymi, A. (2013). Understanding systems science: A visual and integrative approach. Systems Research and Behavioral Science, 30(5): 580-595.
16. Jackson, M. C. (2024). Critical systems thinking: A practitioner’s guide. Wiley.
17. Koopman, C. (2022). Publications. Our data, our selves. University of Oregon. https://ourdataourselves.uoregon.edu/publications
18. Krakauer, D. C. (2024). The complex world: An introduction to the foundations of complexity. Santa Fe Institute Press.
19. Krippendorff, K. (2023). A critical cybernetics. Constructivist Foundations, 19(1): 82-93.
20. Lake, D., & Whipps, J. (2023). Feminist pragmatist design: Evolutionary systems change. Design Issues, 39(4): 21-34.
21. Laue, A. (2004). How the computer works. In S. Schreibman, R. Siemens, & J. Unsworth (Eds.). A companion to digital humanities (pp. 143–160). Blackwell.
22. McCulloch, W. S. (1974). Recollections of the many sources of cybernetics. ASC Forum, 6(2): 5-16.
23. Mitchell, M. (2009). Complexity: A guided tour. Oxford University Press.
24. Mobus, G. E. (2022). Systems science: Theory, analysis, modeling, and design. Springer Nature.
25. Müller, A. (2015), Avec un “s”: histories of cybernetics and the ASC. Kybernetes, 44(8/9): 1341-1349.
26. Peters, J. D., & Peters, B. (2016). Norbert Wiener as pragmatist. Empedocles: European Journal for the Philosophy of Communication, 7(2): 157-172.
27. Pratt, S. L. (2002). Native pragmatism: Rethinking the roots of American philosophy. Indiana University Press.
28. Preiser, R., Swilling, M., Nnoli-Edozien, N., & Ramphele, M. (2020). Towards new narratives of hope for fostering transformative African futures. African Chapter of the Club of Rome.
29. Shanken, E. A. (Ed.) (2015). Systems. The MIT Press and Whitechapel Gallery.
30. Swartz, J. (2018). From survivability to flourishing and sustainability to thrivability: An emerging conceptual framework. In J. Wilby (Ed.), Proceedings of the 62nd Annual Meeting of the ISSS-2018 Corvallis, OR, USA (program and abstract book, p. 58). International Society for the Systems Sciences.
31. Swartz, J., & Wasko, J. (Eds.) (2023). LIFE: A transdisciplinary inquiry. Intellect Ltd./University of Chicago Press.
32. Sweeting, B. (2024). From experimental epistemology to experimental architecture. Architectural Design, 94(2): 30-37. https://doi.org/10.1002/ad.3032
33. Sweeting, B., & Sutherland, S. (2022). Possibilities and practices of systemic design: Questions for the next decade of relating systems thinking and design. Proceedings of Relating Systems Thinking and Design, RSD11, Article 002. https://rsdsymposium.org/questions-for-systemic-design/
34. Turner, F. (2013). The democratic surround: Multimedia & American liberalism from World War II to the psychedelic sixties. University of Chicago Press.
35. Vink, J. (2023). Embodied, everyday systemic design – A pragmatist perspective. Design Issues, 39(4): 35–48. https://doi.org/10.1162/desi_a_00731