Dear Alan
>> Surely the information needs to be about the
>> relationship between people, their activities and
>> theenvironment.
>
>Where do I say anything else? The point is so well
known to those on
>this list that I didn't bother to say it.
This is a subject that I have tried to grapple with
several times. I thought you held that the measures
used in space syntax, particularly the axial line,
indicate relationships between buildings.
I understand that this seems like a nice solid,
scientific fact to work with , but I still think it is
misleading. It is easier to see in VGA, where you
pick a grid of locations where people might be, and
discover which of them could see each other, given the
buildings in the way.
This might seem like a nit-picking distinction, but
one is measuring facts about buildings, and the other
is measuring the physical relationship between people,
specifically the potential for interaction. This has
implications both for what you measure and for what it
means.
From a measure of potential interaction to a
prediction of 'virtual community' is only a step short
of a causal theory, and is intuitively plausible. If
space syntax analysis were to give a general picture
of potential interaction within a set of spaces,
indicating discrete parts that facilitate gathering or
encounter, pointing up relationships of observation or
interface between these parts, then it would give the
designer a much clearer "indication of the good or bad
performance of a building."
I realise that there is a huge amount of valuable
anthropological work done in the space syntax
community, exemplified by Julienne Hanson's "Decoding
Homes & Houses," but it seldom shows on this list
because it seems to make little use of the software.
In fact, I have been unable to find much normative
analysis at all in this work, beyond the drawing of
'genotypes' of houses. Again, a general theory of the
spatial structuring of human interaction would seem a
likely route for forming causal links between social
distinctions and spatial types.
This is not to say that I think all configurational
methods are about human interaction, but it might be
useful to distinguish those that may be measuring
other factors, related to other human phenomena.
Peponis's partitions seem to measure the relationships
between people and surfaces of buildings, axial depth
seems to measure something like the perceived
complexity of a route, but if they are all bound
together as just 'space syntax' I don't see how their
function in the world can be discovered.
>
>Don't talk yourself down as a practitioner
Not talking myself down, I really do hope you know
more about space syntax than I do. It is just a hobby
for me!
Regards, Tom
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