Cake-mix & concrete
Dear all
Thank you to Alan for your answers and your patience with my questions.
I think there are 200 other list-members. Am I the only one who is puzzled by what space syntax is ‘all about’?
I would be interested to hear any comments others might have – perhaps they can see what I am failing to see.
On Sat, 3 Mar 2001, Alan Penn <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
> Well, the central core theory is well set out in the Social Logic of Space.
I’ll have to check again – I found it anything but clear!
>But when you come on to 'methodology' it is bound to
>be like an onion - that is because one tests
>hunches and devises methods to do so. There is no single method.
>These is even no single method for devising 'correct' methods.
There are clearly lots of How’s (eg. Sheep’s remarkable list!): I am looking for a Why?, and I believe that the tools you use to ask ‘how something happens’ must be consistent with the purpose of your enquiry (WHY you think there might be a correlation here which is not just chance).
Imagine the following dialogue:
Alan: what is architecture about?
Tom: it can be about anything you want to design.
Alan: well, surely it can’t be about designing just anything? – it’s not about designing cakes is it?
Tom: I know some architects who make very good cakes.
Alan: but don’t we get some clues from the fact that most architects work with walls, doors, roofs etc.?
Tom: they don’t have to – specially if they want to design cakes, or clothes.
Alan: but clothes and cakes are not ‘Architecture’ are they? Architecture necessarily involves buildings doesn't it?
Tom: that’s just a hunch at the moment. You could try excluding cakes and see if it works better.
>Now in the email thread you started here I get the feeling
>that we keep going in circles, and that they dont get
>much tighter.
Yes, so do I. Sorry about that.
You keep giving me perfectly good answers, but they all seem to be "forty-two". I must have asked the wrong questions. Or too many!
>Perhaps that is because you are looking for a single firm answer and dont
>like it when someone says that we dont know all the answers. Let me say it
>again - there is no single method any more than there is a single method to
>design a house.
But there is a single PURPOSE to ‘designing a house’ – to get a house built the way you want it.
It is based on the theory that if you give a suitable set of drawings to a builder he will build the sort of house you had in mind. The fact that your tool is to pass drawings to another person gives us a clue that the mechanism is to instruct someone else, and that there is a causal link with you being satisfied with the house that gets built.
You could use the same tool to describe your wedding cake, but that isn’t ‘Designing a House’ because the drawing doesn’t represent the subject ‘house.’ You get in a REAL mess if you confuse the purposes of your two drawings, and specify cake-mix instead of concrete!
>> Graph theory is an important tool used by spacesyntax, but not
>> its purpose (is it?).
>>
>Exactly right.
GREAT! So the purpose of studying space syntax is . . .. . . . . . ?
Could it be: "Because spatial configuration influences the way people move through spaces, independent of other variables. Patterns of movement go on to affect many (perhaps all) social phenomena." ?
Just the one question today. Please say ‘yes’ Alan :-)
Or anyone else who thinks it looks right !
regards,
Tom Dine
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Chassay+Last Architects
Primrose Hill
London
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