> Dear Allan !
It was with extreme pleasure that I read your message. To
hear from a person which I consider the best lecturer I ever
had it is a tremendous priviledge (ask my students to whom
I refer when I talk about lecture strategies).
I am fully supportive of your concerns in terms of the
future of space syntax. My present interest in genetic
algorithms and shape grammar has emmerged from space syntax.
I am currently running a design studio mingling these
concepts. I know that Thanos Economou is doing something
simmilar in Atlanta. Perhaps the strong connection between
space syntax and social organisation (with its analytical
bias or mode) has deterred the development towards the
generative aspects of form ( the "design" mode). We all know
that they can complement each other. The acknowledgement of
the Cambridge School (Lionel, mainly) and the more recent
work of the MITīs Design Technology Group would not be a
good idea? I think that Bill, who fostered the basic
principles of space syntax and taught us how to think
(forever)with its concepts will consider this possibility.
Cheers,
Benamy Turkienicz
Bill
>
> It's been a very long time since we communicated, and I've
> never previously contributed to this list - I've been
> lurking for ages, and reading it with great interest and
> admiration, but I'm essentially a spectator nowadays on
> the sidelines of this area of work.
>
> But I'm seriously puzzled and disconcerted by the brief
> historical note that you offer in the email below.
>
> As I recall, when I worked with you and Adrian Leaman (in
> the supportive presence of Professor John Musgrove) 30
> years ago at UCL to create a new MSc in Advanced
> Architectural Studies and to write and submit [in 1974]
> the first successful bid to the Science Research Council
> (as was) for the programme of research that we called
> Space Syntax, ideas about morphology and morphogenesis
> were absolutely central to our deliberations. And those
> ideas, put together over the preceding 3 years or so, most
> emphatically did already draw on theoretical and
> mathematical biology, self-organising systems and
> artificial intelligence.
>
> Your own early published papers eg in Transactions of the
> Bartlett Society, themselves make that lineage absolutely
> clear. One of my contributions was to bring to bear the
> literature on the mathematical modelling of growth and
> form, both in its application to biological systems and in
> its application to 'complex buildings' (as the module that
> I ran on the MSc from 1974 to the early 80s was entitled).
> Among the many strands of theoretical-mathematical biology
> and biophysics that we spent much time on, I recall
> Waddington's epigenetic landscapes and chreodes, Rene
> Thom's 7 catastrophes, Howard Pattee's analysis of
> hierarchical structures, Lindenmayer's 'L-systems' for the
> modelling of self-organising growth, Stanislav Ulam on
> self-assembly in cellular systems, HA Simon's
> 'Architecture of Complexity' and 'Sciences of the
> Artificial' - to mention but a few.
>
> As you know I had myself previously tried in the early 60s
> to use the newly emerging techniques of mathematical
> morphology and morphogenesis in my work as a DPhil student
> in the Medical Research Council Cell Metabolism Research
> Unit at Oxford University (where I was on the receiving
> end of severe discouragement from senior biomedical
> scientists); and I'd subsequently tried to use these ideas
> again when I worked for the Medical Architecture Research
> Unit 1971-74, eg in the planning of hospitals, health
> centres etc (where again such morphological approaches
> were received less favourably than 'general systems'
> ideas). But although I moved away from UCL and from space
> syntax, I've always supposed that SS [at its best] is a
> prime example of just the kind of non-linear, discrete
> generative modelling that some of the pioneers of
> biomathematics and AI/artificial life had envisioned. I
> would even go so far as to say that SS is a more authentic
> specimen of that kind of science than are some of the
> faddish outbreaks of post-chaos-theory 'complex systems'
> modelling - which have not (in my opinion) grasped the
> significance of the distinctively linguistic (discursive,
> syntactical) agenda that Thom, Lindenmayer, Pattee and
> others sketched for the new generative and relational
> biology. That's another story; but I would have thought
> that all those generations of students from UCL from 3 and
> 2 decades ago whose studies of built environment were
> seriously interrupted by the back-breaking reading lists
> that you and I gave them on the mathematical biology of
> morphogenesis might actually have cause to be very
> grateful that there was indeed already a fruitful
> convergence of concepts in those early years, one that
> still deserves to be pursued further in many new
> directions.
>
> You say "But there are of course parallels, and there is a
> great deal of interaction now".
> I can't think that you really mean to disown the unique
> (and exceptionally interesting) origins of space syntax.
>
> Alan
>
> Alan Beattie
> Professor of Public Health and Health Education, St
> Martin's College Lancaster
> MA Tutor and PhD Supervisor, Institute for Health Research
> , Lancaster University
> Member, Complexity Network, Institute for Advanced Study
> in the Social & Management Sciences, Lancaster
>
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Professor Bill Hillier [mailto:[log in to unmask]]
> Sent: 30 January 2004 16:50
> To: [log in to unmask]
> Subject: Re: self organisation & morphogenesis and the
> structure of human sett lements
>
>
> Dear Anthony - Not really - it very much came out of
> problems in trying to understand architecture. But there
> are of course parallels, and there is a good deal of
> interaction now. People like Alasdair Turner in the
> research group here came from artificial intelligence, and
> Rui Carvalho is a mathematical physicist. So convergence,
> yes, very much so, but less so in origins. The origins are
> really set out in the Introduction to 'The Social Logic of
> Space'. And by the way, you might look at the second
> chapter there where we first tried look at generative
> processes which led to the kinds of spatial patterning you
> find in settlement - what I call in the Atlanta paper
> the 'basic generative process': it produces the topology
> but not the geometry of the city. It was the kinds of
> restrictions on otherwise random generative processes that
> seemed to be needed to describe the range of spatial
> variation found in real settlements that were the sources
> of the ideas that became space synyax as an analytic tool.
> - Bill
>
>
> >Dear Bill - Was the development of space syntax theory
> done in parallel to >the development of theories of self
> organisation and emergence in biology, >physics,
> mathematics and artificial intelligence? If it was, then
> an >interesting convergence of ideas could be taking
> place. >
> >Anthony
> >
> >> -----Original Message-----
> >> From: Professor Bill Hillier [SMTP:[log in to unmask]]
> >> Sent: Friday, January 30, 2004 5:25 AM
> >> To: [log in to unmask]
> >> Subject: Re: self organisation & morphogenesis and
> the structure of >> human sett lements
> >>
> >> Dear Anthony - There are quite a few papers in the
> Space Syntax Symposia >> Proceeedings which address thes
> issues, though not always under the title >> of
> 'self-organising systems'. But in a sense, a good deal of
> the space >> syntax stuff about cities is about
> self-organisation, though it doesn't >> call itself that.
> It's about how multi-agent distributed processes spread >>
> over decades or centuries create well-formed emergent
> patterns with both >> invariants and differences. So in a
> sense, it's a theory of the 'organic' >> city. You should
> browse the web-sites for the last two symposia >>
> >> As far as the things I have written myslf are concerned
> , a key recent text
> >> is my first paper to the Third Symposium called 'A
> theory of the city as >> object'
> http://undertow.arch.gatech.edu/homepages/3sss/ which
> tries to >> give
> >> some account of how the spatial patterns formed by the
> aggregation of >> buildings acquire certain kind of
> emergent structure. This builds on >> earlier papers
> which describe between them how emergent space structure
> in >> cities shapes the processes of movement, land use
> patterns and centre and >> sub-centre formation in cities.
> The sequence of papers is: >>
> >> Hillier B et al (1993) Natural movement: or
> configuration and attraction >> in
> >> urban pedestrian movement - Environment & Planning B:
> Planning & Design >> 20,
> >> 29-66
> >>
> >> Hillier B (1996) - Cities as movement economies in
> Urban Design >> International Vol 1 No 1 pp49-60 E &
> F.N.Spon. Also Chapter 4 of Space is >> the Machine.
> >>
> >> Hillier B (2000) Centrality as a process: accounting
> for attraction >> inequalities in deformed grids Urban
> Design International, 3/4, 107-127 >>
> >> Hillier B (2002) A theory of the city as object: how
> the social >> construction of urban space is mediated by
> spatial laws Urban Design >> International 7, 153-159)
> >>
> >> Also relevant are
> >>
> >> Hillier B et al (2000) Self-generated neighbourhood
> consolidation in >> informal settlements (with Margarita
> Greene and Jake Desyllas) Urban >> Design
> >> International ISSN 1357 5317 vol 5 no 2 61-96
> >>
> >> Hillier B (1999) The hidden geometry of deformed grids:
> or, why space >> syntax works, when it looks as though it
> shouldn't Environment and >> Planning
> >> B: Planning & Design, 26, 169-191
> >>
> >> Self-orgnaisation issues are also dealt with in in
> different way in my two
> >> paper to the Fourth Symposium:
> >>
> >> Hillier B (2003a) The architectures of seeing and going
> Paper to the >> Fourth
> >> Space Synyax Symposium, London, June 2003.
> >>
> >> Hillier B (2003b) The knowledge that shapes the city
> Paper to the Fourth >> Space Syntax Symposium, London,
> June 2003 >>
> >> both of which can be downloaded from
> www.spacesyntax.net or >> www.spacesyntax.org/
> >>
> >> - Bill
> >>
> >>
> >>
> >> >I am studying how the theories of self organisation &
> morphogenesis could
> >> >help our understanding of the structure of human
> settlements. Obviously, >> >space syntax theories would be
> useful in this regard. Has any research >> been
> >> >done in this area.
> >> >
> >> >Anthony
> >> >
> >> >----wrtmail--423wrt%----
> >
> >----wrtmail--423wrt%----
>
>
>
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