In March 2023, we visited The School of Cybernetics at the Australian National University in Canberra. Across a day of sharing research, work and ideas, we recognised how aligned cybernetic approaches are to the ideas behind Integrative Briefing. Layering, pace and change, concepts that originated through Frank Duffy’s (DEGW) work and built on by Stewart Brand are useful lenses to explore the built environment as part of a cybernetic system encompassing humans, technology and environment relations. This was observed through the System of a Sound installation which was on display at the school, and a version is also accessible online. In this guest blog, Josh Andres, discusses cybernetics and the System of a Sound installation.

The built environment, with its architectural structures, infrastructures, and embedded technologies, can be framed as a cybernetic system comprising the interdependency between humans, technologies, and the surrounding natural environment in complex ways.

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