space, society and Space Syntax

Hi Tim

I haven't seen any replies from the spacesyntax experts, but I have
some (amateur) comments for what they are worth.

For a start, your mailing is useful because it is an example of what
people might want from spacesyntax.  Of course, different people want
different things to be explained, but most of the studies I have seen
were performed for clients who seem to have had a pretty good idea
about what the usual techniques deliver and presented a problem
which suited that technique;  city-wide analysis of how busy one part is
likely to be relative to another, for example.

I suppose we need to ask what exactly you want to know from analysis
of this story, and what spacesyntax could hope to explain.  The gist of
your argument seems to be that having direct access & visual contact
with passers-by permitted positive social interaction, lack of these
opportunities caused mutual distrust.  However, a fence changed trust
to distrust even though you could still interact with passers-by.  You
seem to suggest that the fence might be seen as a symbol of
mistrust.

Space syntax can tell you what sort of differences the fence, then the
wall, made to 'where people can go' and 'who can see whom'.  This
might seem blindingly obvious, but without a bit more information
(such as a site plan) it is hard to tell how much difference to
'configuration' the various changes made.  In my opinion, space syntax
cannot tell you about the fence as a symbol in the social system of the
village (Alan Penn might like to disagree!).  It CAN take a rigorous look
at the way a fence affects who can go where, and who can see whom,
both around your house and in the surrounding area.   I suspect that it
cannot offer an 'explanation' of what happened, but might suggest
processes which were going on.

So, what are the 'social phenomena' and what are the 'configurational
changes'?  If I read the story rightly the social phenomena are:
1. Foreign visitors arrive and build homes in an old established rural
community
2. Visitors seem to value scenic views more than established
inhabitants
3. The shop - focus of the community - is moving location due to
changes unconnected with these arrivals
4. Inhabitants of the lower houses got to know locals who regularly
passed by
5. Inhabitants of the upper houses had no contact with locals and
feared them
6. The installation of a fence seems to have been met with hostility
from the locals (I presume from the reference to the 'first snipping in
the wire')

Physical facts are:
1. Roads do not offer good observation of people approaching the
community.
2. The lower houses offered a living space with good visual contact
&direct access to the public road.
3. The upper houses no spaces which offered either.
4. A fence was erected which made the access 'deeper' but
maintained visual contact.
5. This was replaced with a wall which reduced visual contact without
making access 'deeper'

I hope this summary is roughly correct.

THE FENCE
It seems that erecting the fence was the central fact in your tale,
together with an implied worsening in relations between your group
and the locals.  The first question is whether there was a significant
link at all - if your contact with the locals was limited to passing
greeting, perhaps it was open to distrust regardless of the fence.
Then there is a question of whether a fence simply symbolized
mistrust - so that a big sign saying 'private - keep out' might have done
the same, or whether the limits it placed on movement were an
important factor.

I don't think spacesyntax can tackle the symbolism question - this
seems to me to be a matter of the concepts people carry in their
heads and would require psychological or sociological research -
questionnaires etc.  As for the movement question, well all we know
from your story is that you prevented movement into the vicinity of your
houses by anyone except yourselves.  This might be construed as an
anti-social action in itself not because it implied that others were
thieves, but because it (perhaps) went against the accepted pattern.

I suspect that we might be dealing with one of those 'unwritten rules'
about the spatial arrangement of homes which relates to unwritten
social rules of 'where people may go' - this is the basis of Hillier &
Hanson's first book 'The Social Logic of Space'.

I don't know much about Swe  - I mean - Bojobojoland, but I wonder
whether it is normal in the village for houses to be surrounded by
fences.  I am thinking of Switzerland, where rural areas usually have
houses planted in open lawns with no readily apparent demarcation
of property.  This seems to be related both to a strong sense of
community and to a strict self-regulation by inhabitants.  They COULD
go right up to their neighbours' window, but do not do so out of
courtesy.    In the UK we have the expression "Good fences make
good neighbours".  This does not seem to be the motto in some other
countries in Europe which work another way.

It seems that your group were thinking about personal security when
putting up the fence.  Maybe the locals were thinking in a quite different
way.  Perhaps the village community has an underlying assumption
that it is a single community, and that all the land in some sense
belongs to everyone (even though one person has the right to use it at
one time).  In that social climate putting up a fence would be rather like
a teenage son putting security locks on his bedroom in his parents
home - it is 'his' room, but not in quite such an exclusive way as that!
Other inhabitants might see it as something close to theft - especially
if he were a recently adopted son!

Some people might call this a symbolic change, but I would say that
what mattered was the fact of whether someone could or couldn't
physically move into a particular place. This fact might then be
invested with meaning -  social meaning, local cultural meaning,
personal psychological meaning, even psychotic delusional meaning
- but a meaning attached to the facts of 'where you can go' and not to
the object itself.

I don't know whether the village worked this way, it is just a guess, but
you might want to consider whether there seem to be local rules of the
form:
[Configurational rule]:  All the land in the village is physically
accessible to everyone.
[Social Rule]:  Out of respect for others, you will keep an appropriate
distance away from other peoples' homes or the land they work.

OTHER ISSUES
There are all sorts of other issues which could be raised:

Did the fence actually add any distance to the route between you on
the veranda and someone on the street?

Does the amount of 'depth' from the street matter if you can still see &
talk to people there?  Was it just the fact of ANY distancing device what
mattered?

Would the same social effect have resulted if a local had erected a
similar fence?

Is social interaction across a movement-barrier qualitatively different
to identical interaction without it?   Would it make a difference if the
barrier were symbolically more benign, such as a fishpond instead of
a fence?  I think these are psycho-social questions rather than
spacesyntax (socio-spatial) ones.

Did it make any difference when the fence was replaced by a wall?  Is
'separated from village movement' the critical factor which cannot be
made worse by loosing visual contact?  Might it actually improve
matters by reducing the inequality  between you who can choose to go
out and observe passers-by through the fence, and passers-by who
have no choice whether they are seen by you?

The question of valuing scenic views - what is the importance of this?

Local roads do not offer good observation of people approaching the
community - was this relevant?

Well, those are my thoughts.  I should mention again that I am not a
trained space-syntax person,  perhaps someone more qualified will
put right my mistakes.

Regards,     Tom

Tom Dine
Chassay+Last Architects
Primrose Hill
London

[log in to unmask]