At 183m long, 120m wide, 67m high, and consisting of 2,200 concrete ribs, the Sydney Opera House is both a World Heritage Building and one of the most iconic buildings in the world.

Yet the story of designing and building Sydney Opera House is a story of constraints in tension and probing for coherence.

Jørn Utzon, a Danish architect, won an international competition in 1957, to design the opera house. He imagined a beautiful arrangement of curved arches.

When sketches turned to conversations of budget, and the physics of building these curves, it didn't seem possible.

Aesthetics, Physics, and Budget were constraints in tension with each other.

Coherence, a concept from complexity theory, deals with the interplay of constraints and is described by Alicia Juarrero as:

“The emergence of organized, stable structures or patterns that arise from the interplay of constraints, rather than being imposed by external forceful causes.”

Incoherence is a deep line in the sand. Something incoherent is not possible. For example, a building design that literally defies gravity is incoherent with physics.

Coherence is a gradient. Something can be well within the realm of coherence or right on the border of coherence and incoherence. A small, one-storey house is well within the laws of physics, while the eventual opera house leans towards the "pushing the boundaries of physics as we knew them".

For the Sydney Opera House, any architectural design that met the budget and the laws of physics would have been coherent.

“I like to be at the edge of the possible.” Jørn Utzon

Initial sketches for the arches, based on conventional construction methods, were incoherent with physics; Utzon considered plywood ribs to form the arches, but they were determined to be structurally unsound given the size of the building.

Initial sketches were also incoherent with budget; cast-in place concrete, where a scaffolding in the shape of the arc would have been built and then ‘filled in’ with concrete, was too expensive.

A far-less iconic design would have been coherent with physics and the budget but incoherent with his vision.

For years, Utzon and his team explored different designs and construction methods.

Then Utzon found coherence at breakfast.

Utzon realised, while eating an orange, that translating the properties of an orange peel into the design of the opera house would be coherent with the aesthetics, budget, and physics (Sydney Opera House Utzon Design Principles).

Spherical geometry distributes weight evenly across the surface and requires less material to produce, making it strong and cost effective. Further, because the geometry was consistent, the sails could be ‘built up’ with individual concrete ribs, which enabled construction to happen off-site and to use the same molds, which dramatically reduced the cost.

There’s far more to the story about why this worked, but this isn’t a lesson about geometry, construction, or government budgets.

There's something far more important, repeatable, and practical.

Prior to the citrus-fuelled insight, Utzon deeply explored different designs and had conversations with funders, engineers, other architects, and builders. He explored the contours, the depths, and the edges of the three (and many more) constraints, and the ways in which they interacted.

Having this understanding of constraints, when he peeled the orange, he had the insight, recognised the importance of the insight, and had the relationships and ability to translate the insight into the globally-recognised icon.*

Had Utzon not understood the constraints, the orange may just have been another orange, or the insight just another disregarded sketch.

Navigating complexity beyond the Opera House

When we recognise what we're dealing with as complex, we can't analyse, fully understand, make a plan, or engage with the situation in predictable ways.

Like navigating a yet-explored ocean, the place where aesthetics, budget, and physics overlapped was uncharted territory.

When we navigate complexity, we need to probe the system not just so that we can move the system in the direction we want, but to understand the constraints and their interactions. Utzon would have sketched a design and then gone to speak to engineers and contractors, who would tell him “yes, an arch of this angle is physically possible with this material, but it will cost [X]” or “yes, you can in-lay rebar in concrete as a way to stabilise the concrete, but the added weight would make the building structurally unsound in an earthquake”.

We often encounter complexity and moments when coherence doesn’t seem possible. It can feel like we’re grasping around in the dark. We often stay put, reaching out for any stable reference point to grab hold of, or taking a few steps only to retreat back to where we started, never making progress.

The next time you encounter complexity, think of Jørn and ask:

"Am I jumping from sketch to sketch?"

OR

"Am I probing my environment to explore the contours of the relevant constraints?"

Exploring the contours of constraints doesn’t often feel like progress.

But remember, Jørn (likely) ate many oranges in the years between winning the competition and the moment of insight.

You can't control a moment of insight; you can cultivate the conditions for it to happen.

Featured image: Kewal on Unsplash