On the complexity of system designs

Abstract

A 'design archetype' is a characterisation of the possible designs that a given system design approach can generate. The central concern is the need for flexible and structurally scalable design approaches. The design archetype is a pattern for generating system designs of arbitrary scale; design approaches cannot not scale well that do not sufficiently limit the range of designs they can produce. The Kolmogorov and uniform complexities of the design archetype are used to quantify the scalability of its corresponding design methodology; system design approaches are classed according to the upper bounds on these measures as the system size increases.