Sanjay, I'm very interested to hear what you are doing, and it sound
promising. But space syntax was always first about
permeability/accessibility, and the visual thing really came later.
If you go back to 'The Social Logic of Space', even axial lines are
defined in terms of direct access, not visbility. One reason for this
is that Gassin is on the ridge of hill, so we had to deal with level
changes from the outset. Apt, the town we always compared it with
(though not in SLS) was deliberately selected because the main area
of the town was flat. The interesting this was that both seemed to
have evolved the same 'deep structure' when analysed as line maps.
By the way, in the very early stages of developing syntax, one of the
buildings we analysed was Newgate Prison before and after a major
transformation, and some of the discussion in Chapter 4 and 5 of SLS
clooks at these kinds of buildings. But you are right that, to my
knowledge, relatively little serious syntatcic work has been done on
prisons - not only because access is restricted, but also because
plans are very hard to obtain. But few years ago Dita Peatross wrote
an excellent syntactic PhD on restrictive buildings at Georgia Tech,
and came up with some beautiful results about why 'non-panopticons'
could develop more informal control cultures. You should look at
that, and the papers she published from it.
But you are also right that the relation between visual and physical
accessibility is critical, not only in prisons, but also in cities
and housing areas. Where I live, in the Barbican, you can see
everything but get little idea about how to get anywhere. It is a
main theme on the walking lecture I do each year in the City of
London and the Barbican. There is much more to be done here, both
theoeretically anbd methodlogically. - Bill
>It is indeed an interesting discussion but I think we have been here before
> many times now. I think the "visual structure" of a space only dictates the
>"visual accessibility" of a space. In my humble opinion, SS is only about
>that. I was asked some time ago to think of some relevance of SS to prison
>designs. Prison is a good example to draw a contrast between "visual
>accessibility" and "complete accessibility". In order to create a secure
>prison, a designer has to think of both "visual accessibility" and "physical
>accessibility". The prison walls are made 60 feets high for a reason because
>I don't think a 2D line is going to pose a real obstacle. However, "visual
>accessibility" can also be used to create the notion of prison i.e solitude
>and behaviour control. The classical examples being the panopticon and
>isolation rooms. Suffice to say that a "complete accessibility" assessment
>would require a multitude of "accessibility indicators". Again, dare I
>suggest (and I do that with great hope) that SS researchers are not taking
>the next step in developing SS. I would compare conventional SS as Newton
>Laws of gravity, nice and simple and works well for regional levels, however
>the workings of real spaces (and their influence on people) would perhaps
>require a probability-based, chaotic, random, non-physical (i.e. sound,
>colour, 3D, Metric (amongst many others, characterisation of space.
>
>To that effect, I have started a personal project on mapping SS measures in
>3D for some well-known buildings. The output would be just a colourful
>"Atlas of Nice Buildings" and their "SS signatures". If you have a VRML (in
>VRML 2.0 format) of a famous building and would like to have it analysed
>then write to me off-list. DO NOT SEND ME THE VRML ON EMAIL AS IT WILL BLOCK
>MY EMAIL ACCOUNT.
>
>Sanjay.
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