Seminar at the Department of ITM, Towards a Theory of Generative Architectures: A Longitudinal Study of eHealth Infrastructures in Norway

Ole Hanseth
University of Oslo

The presentation will discuss the role of architecture in the development and evolution of information infrastructures. Going beyond the purely technical perspective, we review three different streams of architectural thinking, namely strategic architecting, mirroring and structural alignment and innovations and generativity. We find that a key dimension is lacking in the extant architectural theorizing, and suggest the concept of generative architecture to frame a more comprehensive understanding of the role of architecture.

Our empirical evidence is based on ten cases from the health sector, collected over a period of 20 years. A longitudinal analysis allowed us to identify two main architectural approaches; the Application Centric/Institutional Interface Architecture (INA) and the Communication System Centric/Service Provider Architecture (SPA). Through the careful study of the ten cases, we present evidence that SPA architecture is more generative, and therefore, more successful. The theoretical contribution is a more powerful lens for architectural analysis, while our practical contribution is a set of operational criteria that information infrastructure architecture should satisfy.

Registration
Registration is not required but will be appreciated.
If you plan to attend the seminar please let us know via email: registration.itm@cbs.dk