I'd agree Tom :-) 
Alan
> 
> David & Alan
> 
> It may be a personal failing, but I was hoping to aim
> at a single issue as a basis for understanding space
> syntax, although not of course to circumscribe the
> field.  It might be a basis for exploration which
> changes as the exploration develops.  I could make an
> analogy with the way designers understand quite
> another aspect of buildings, the use of heat and
> power. The regulations in England & Wales cover a wide
> range of issues, measurements and experiences, but
> until last year these were all centred around the
> issue of Energy Conservation.  We might not understand
> much about the thermal resistance of materials, but
> anyone could understand that U-values were a way of
> rating how well materials conserve energy.  Last year
> the regulations were changed to take the Carbon Index
> as a central issue instead, and a deal of confusion
> reigns.
> 
> As designers, once we have a comprehensible issue
> around which to hang our understanding, we can at
> least see where in the design process to consider
> these particular aspects of the building problem, and
> when to call in outside advice.    It seems to me that
> space syntax has at times been a little coy about
> naming the central issue, perhaps for fear of cutting
> down possibilities, but if you are looking for
> outreach to more designers, it needs to be done.
> 
> Of course, the central issue branches out into all
> sorts of sub-issues and related phenomena, as David
> rather neatly set out.  But in starting out by
> considering what it is like to experience the
> potential for co-presence immediately makes me think
> of possible (testable) mechanisms which might explain
> some of the correlations between behaviour and
> configuration found in space syntax studies.
> 
> To take up one of Alan's points, I can see that the
> virtual community remains just that, virtual, up to
> the point at which it is realised.  But there are some
> basic things about the way people can operate in
> relation to each other which seem to be embedded
> within space syntax.  To go back to the crowded beach
> example, movement disrupts group interaction, groups
> inhibit movement, encounter happens between the two.
> This says nothing about physical boundaries, only
> spatial relations between people.  When physical
> boundaries are introduced,  a habitable space forces
> people into a limited form of group awareness, whether
> or not they want to interact as a group, whether or
> not there is actually anyone else there at the time.
> And one habitable space affects behaviour in  another,
> even if it is not inhabited.  A roof terrace
> _overlooks_ a neighbouring garden even when there is
> no-one there to do the overlooking.  This is not an
> academic issue, it can make or break a planning
> approval.
> 
> And space syntax is in a unique position to examine
> this because, I believe, it does not encode the
> spatial relations between boundaries, but the possible
> spatial relations of people.  Of course the two are
> closely linked, but not the same.  That is why you
> draw a map (showing building edges) and then derive
> from this the convex and axial diagrams (diagrams not
> maps, not isomorphic to buildings) showing potential
> spatial relations between people. You may think the
> distinction is picky, but it shows in how to define
> what to measure.  The test of a convex space is
> whether all possible people are visible and
> accessible, not all possible walls, which makes it
> possible to determine difficult cases such as a raised
> dais in a hall.  Is it possible for someone on the
> dais to be invisible or inaccessible to others in the
> hall?  That is why I say that it shows
> potential-space-between-people, not just Space in the
> abstract.  You don't have to look for connections to
> social phenomena, the diagram is inherently social,
> and points toward social mechanisms.
> 
> I quite agree with Alan that interesting things happen
> when feedback occurs between the phenotypic realised
> lifeworld and the structures of the environment, but
> the value of analysis is to isolate a particular,
> genotypic feature of life (a phenomenon) to see what
> specific effect it has in different circumstances.
> My proposition is that there is a single dominant
> phenomenon in space syntax, that you are mapping the
> ebb and flow of potential human co-presence through
> the city, in its several possible variants.  And I
> think that is something you can discuss with us
> designers with some hope of us understanding its
> significance.  What do you think?
> 
> Regards,   Tom Dine
> Architect   London
> 
> --- David Seamon <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
> > Tom,
> > I like your email because it points toward
> > the wide range of phenomenological
> >  understandings that might be
> > helpful in place making-for example:
> >
> 
> 
> 
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