Cities on the Edge of Chaos

Is the mass-customised city no more than a smokescreen, a re-evocation of Modernist positivism and its problem-solving ideology? Colin Fournier , Emeritus Professor of Architecture and Urbanism at the Bartlett School of Architecture, University College London (UCL), and Visiting Professor at the Chinese University of Hong Kong (CUHK), questions the premise of this issue and asks if the variation required for a city's survival ‘at the edge of chaos’ lies beyond mass customisation.