Its brilliant to see the mailbase being used and to have raised such
interesting points in just 3 or 4 messages. I agree entirely with Jake
about defining our 'discipline' in terms of the problem it sets out to
solve, but the replies from practicing architects highlight the issue of
taking the problem back to where it is being used to try to solve real
problems in real urban contexts. Without denegrating any of the theoretical
work (which is impressive and gets more so as I read more of the geography
and planning literature) or the work of the Space Syntax Lab, a problem
I've found with trying to get it across to architects and urbanists without
space syntax knowledge or background, is the question of its position
within the broader urban debate. I think we have been less than totally
clear about this. What architects and planners want to know is not just
what space syntax does (some think it makes a bit of a mountain out of a
molehill - space doesn't really _do_ that much does it?), but also they
want to know what issue in the debate it is trying to address. Is it simply
an instrument capable of making sure that more people pass through or past
another shopping centre (nice - but most planners/developers probably start
from the position that their 'attraction' is what is going to make people
pass through it and maybe 'space' can just add a couple of points to the
margins) - or is it saying something more about the nature of and
possibilities within the (post)modern urban landscape. What does space
syntax have to say about 'edge cities' or about the flow of business out to
the periphery or about social and spatial fragmentation or about developer
'communities' or super-rapid urbanisation. I can hear everyone shouting -
but this is for the geographers/planners - its not our ball-game. But it is
the game that other people out there are busy with and want to know more
about. And I actually think that the way of understanding space and the
city which is implicit as much as explicit in space syntax qualifies us to
say something about the well functioning city - not as an exercise in space
syntax talk but in the language of the 'debate'.

Here's an easy place to start: Someone I read recently - who was it? -
divided modern urban theory and discourse up into 'centrist' and
'decentrist'. Does being a 'space syntaxist' necessarily make you a
'centrist' or a 'decentrist' as regards your convictions about good city
functioning. To me the answer is obvious. Also - what about the
reconstituted 18thC 'urbanity' of the 'new (sub)urbanists'. Do their claims
stand up to the test of our spatial instincts - I think the answer is
obvious here too. What is our position - given our instincts - about
unevenness in the urban landscape, and about the loss of the 'middle scale'
in enclaved developments attached only to regional highways.

It would be nice to think that we could just do our work and the
implications of it would be picked up by fair and impartial people studying
the city as a whole and would sort of filter through the system. But,
somehow I don't think that really happens - and anyway the bigger
geographical debate is rather interesting and exciting as well. What a buzz
it would be to go in there with our 'insiders' knowledge about space -
boosted with a little Harvey, Lefebvre and de Certeau (de who??).

Anyway - to get back to the two architects who were less than satisfied
with their experience so far of space syntax. Space syntax is more than a
design instrument - it is a way of thinking about space - and it is also a
way of thinking about space which is at odds with other ways of thinking
about space. Space syntax takes a position with regard to urban development
- even if only implicitly (so far) and it does not regard an enclave stuck
out on the end of some highway to be good urbanism (and it's not likely to
be able to fix the fundamental errors that are set up in the basic brief).
We know so little about the mechanics of urbanity and why certain areas
buzz while others don't - but I'm pretty sure that the areas that work have
something in addition to the programmed input of planners and architects.
The spatial (connective) redundancy emphasised by Alexander (The city is
not a tree) is important. But there is also something else - a structure
maybe that guarantees uneveness (and 'marginality' right next-door to the
'dominant' programmed functions and spaces - but properly transparent from
and structured with those spaces). I'm sure also that some well thought
through concepts, inspired and supported by space syntax, and presented as
a theory of 'good city form' will enable the instincts that we have
attained by working with space syntax to be transported in a handy form to
the professions. Well thats one of the things I'm trying to find the time
to work on anyway.

It would be nice to keep this going now it has started. I'm looking forward
to reactions.


Stephen Read

Faculty of Architecture
Delft University of Technology




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