Contemporary Rural Settlements
Throughout history, built environment developed intuitively on empirical experience led by trial and error. Such approach provided resilience and evolvement of patterns that guided spatial organization. Newer interventions in the rural environment resulted in disconnected spatial fragments. By comparing vernacular and contemporary planning and construction practice in the natural park Blidinje, the authors tried to identify the reason for which contemporary interventions resulted in new patterns in spatial planning, ones completely unfamiliar for this geographical area. They identified the reason in the fact that men started to treat the natural space as a commodity, forcing stakeholders to be led primarily by economic principles. Such principles are rigid and linear, instead of contextual in this matter. At the same time, the environmentally sound approach should respect complexity of whole endeavor aiming to achieve diversity and variability. The models developed based on complexity theory and self-organization should preserve continuity and integrity of the place and man. Contemporary Rural Settlements: New Paradigm for Planning and Constructing Rural Settlements Based on Complexity Theory