Non-linearity is a key to complexity. Non-linear references and echoes from one part of a story to another make a novel complex. Complex music contains more elaborated and unexpected internal self-reference than easy listening standard sequences. A place can become complex when there are references and comments from one part to another in its spatial construction, or in its normative trajectories of action.
Complex places restrict what should follow upon what; this increases the intensity of the place in a different way than would a linear sequence where each of the simpler self-contained intensities does not impose much on the next step. Non-linearity can impose multiple and mutually qualifying norms on trajectories of action within a place. The next thing you do there might be affected by the intersection of several norms.
(c) David Kolb, 1 August 2001