Design Pressure and Stress in Systems Physics*

A key challenge of the complex design problems that permeate science and engineering is the need to balance design objectives for specific design elements or subsystems with global system objectives. Global system objectives give rise to competing design pressures, whose effects can be difficult to trace in subsystem design. Here, using examples from layout problems, we show that the systems-level application of statistical physics principles, which we term ``systems physics'', provides a detailed characterization of stress in subsystem design. We analyze instances of routing problems in naval architectures, and show that systems physics provides direct means of classifying architecture types, and quantifying trade-offs between subsystem and overall performance. Our approach generalizes straightforwardly to design problems in a wide range of other disciplines that require concrete understanding of the link between the pressure to meet overall design objectives and the outcomes for subsystems.