Tim,
I wasn’t quite clear whether you were thinking of viewscapes within multi
level buildings (eg in atria), or the effects of tall buildings on the urban
viewscape, or the effects of upper floors as vantage points in terms of
external views. Clearly all present interesting questions as well as
challenges for analysis. Maria Doxa wrote an excellent paper on the first
looking at the Royal Festival Hall and National Theatre in London for the
3rd Syntax Symposium (I think?) – well worth reading. I am not aware of
anything much using syntax on the second and third, although there is some
really good GIS based analysis of viewsheds coming out of archaeology – take
a look at Llobera, M., 2003, Extending GIS based analysis: the concept of
visualscape, Int J. GIS, 1(17) 1-25. The latter makes distinctions between
viewer height and landscape topography in defining what can be seen from
where, the notorious Pope’s feet effect – looking up at the balcony you
never see his feet, but he can see yours.
Formally, the distinction between what you can see and where you can go is
implicit in syntax methods, but so to is ‘seeing that you can go’. Dongchuk
Chang found the latter to be really important in defining how people move
around multi level circulation systems in London – the visibility of stair
links affects their use. This is perhaps unsurprising, but if so one wonders
why designers so often seem to go to pains to hide vertical circulation
links.
Having just come back from holiday in the hill villages of Liguria, exactly
the kind of steep landscape you describe, I found one thing striking. That
is the degree to which line of sight and permeability were kept together. It
seemed to me that axial lines drawn ‘on the slope’ map almost directly onto
axial lines drawn on the plan view – this is just an informal observation,
but I was thinking about the matter on the spot.
All the best,
Alan
________________________________________
From: Tim Greenhow
Sent: 27 August 2004 08:16
Subject: Re: syntax in context of multifloor buildings
As a reader of this mail list, a would-be but not very successful applier of
space syntax, I am curious about how the viewscape implications of
multifloor buildings are taken into account in space syntax . Visual contact
as viewscapes seem rather frequently mentioned but my impression is that
this is almost always assumed to be at ground level. Another twist of this
applies to communities in steeply sloping landscapes, where a pedestrian can
often see (downwards) much more than s/he has direct physical access to, but
where upward the opposite might be true.
Tim Greenhow
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