Tom Everest-Dine and Luciano Borghesi have both been wondering how Syntax
gets applied and looking for examples of its application.
This is a bit of a difficult question since there is quite a lot to choose
from and it all depends on exactly what your expectations are. The best
place to go for a list of recent UCL projects is at the
http://www.spacesyntax.com website, perhaps John Peponis has a similar list
for applications in the States? however I guess that you are not really
interested in just a list, but some kind of account of how syntax can move
from being theoretically interesting to being useful (As an aside, I think
that the real test of scientific theory is eventually its utility, and so I
think that the question raised here is absolutely fundamental).
The work we are involved in is of several kinds, but it has a number of
substantial strands. The first is in diagnosis of a problem - people tend
to come to us when they recognise that there is somthing wrong, but cant
quite put their finger on it. What syntax offers here is the ability to
control the spatial design variable in a research study of some aspect of
building or urban performance. For instance we are currently involved in a
number of studies of the 'crime and design' problem. We build the datasets
that allow us to unpack the relationship between the two, using syntax
analysis to put numbers to the patterns properties of spatial design, and
then looking for correlates of crime occurence. Without the ability to
quantify syntactic properties the best people can do is look for clusters -
the problem with crime is that it does not often cluster and the important
findings are that there is a design relationship, but that it is dispersed
and depends on how spaces relate and how they carry movement.
Once we have the diagnosis we can move on to intervention. We have been
involved both in design guidance (eg. a design guide on hospital design and
crime for the UK NHS Estates) and in direct input to design schemes. The
latter is the most common. Here the process is about bringing our
theoretical understanding of what leads to the problem, to bear on design
proposals. Usually this process is carried out in collaboration with design
teams who respond to the diagnosis by proposing design strategies. These
are inserted in the context model (for urban schemes) and analysed,
allowing predictions to be made of performance. Often we also use the
computer to experiment with the boudaries of what is achievable within a
given context, and use these experiments to give feedback to the design
team and set them thinking about the alternative design options. The
process is mainly an iterative one in which syntax is just one of the
domains which is brought to bear on the evaluation of a design proposal. We
believe that it is a particularly important one in that it bears on the
more social and business related aspects of building performance, in areas
where there are very few other tools available, and where the ability to
quantify and give a logical and evidence based argument for one design
strategy as opposed to another counts for a lot. Most other arguments to
which numbers can be put are financial or environmental, and for some
reason numbers often hold sway over intuition. One of the ways we 'sell'
syntax is that it can help to win the argument that we all know is
intuitively correct. Of course that tends to be a sales line to architects
- in fact as often as not the analysis suggests that their intuition was
wrong, though we have yet to find the situation in which they were not
prepared to change their intuitions in the face of the evidence!
Solid evidence and a detailed logical argument for a particular design
strategy really become powerful tools in planning inquiries. We have been
involved in a number of these over the years, and they tend to push the
theory on rather rapidly as one has to prepare the evidence for detailed
scrutiny by very high powered barristers as well as the inspectors. Syntax
has now been accepted as 'evidence of fact' (as opposed to 'evidence of
opinion') by inspector in at least one UK planning inquiry, and that is a
pretty valuable thing since we are dealing with the more social aspects of
function, which are often held to be purely subjective.
We have found that this kind of 'audit trail' through the design process is
also useful internally in organisations. We seem quite often to be brought
in by client orgainsations where there is an argument between the
'property' division, and the 'business units', for instance. The former
can't see why one should not just buy a spec office, the latter want a
building suited to their needs as an organisation and know that spec space
does not support this. We have won that argument for PowerGen and for
British Airways in recent HQ buildings. At the same time, we are advising
some of the major spec developers, though to be honest none of them have
yet asked for advice on the internal layout of spec office space - we seem
only to get asked about the exterior (eg. the latter phases of Broadgate
where we were involved in problem mitigation very late in the day, and at
Fleet Place, both in the City of London).
Recently we have been involved in quite a series of office design and
refurb projects - here the diagnosis tends to be about chronic rather than
acute communication and poor working atmosphere problems. We have found
that buildings do have very clear effects on this, and have now got a
sizable benchmarking database on which each new problem case gets plotted,
and then against which design options can be checked for their likely
effects. This area of research has moved us into understanding the impact
of comms technologies and 'new ways of working', and we have been involved
in a series of quite high profile projects including the establishment of
'ROMPing' at HHCL an ad agency which has caught the attention of the media
recently.
Finally, all this can sound rather mundane (and I've not even mentioned the
work that is going on in understanding EPOS data in retail and putting
profit against spatial design, or the work on traffic and pollution
distribution in urban areas and evaluation of pedestrianisation schemes and
traffic clear zones!), but what distinguishes space syntax from the rest of
'modelling' is that it is essentially scientific in its approach. We try to
construct a theoretical understanding to the point at which we can make
refutable predictions. This is in part 'epidemiological' and based on
statistical analysis of observations, and partly to do with the development
of plausible 'mechenisms' which might give rise to the observed
regularities. Underlaying the whole thing is now a very robust set of
social theories about the way that spatial configuration relates to various
aspects of social and organisational life. I believe that it is necessary
to understand these theories if one is to really make use of syntax in
design. If one does, then one can get a long way with just one's intuition,
but the whole 'evidence based' process does become necessary when problems
get large and complex and defy intuition. None of what I have mentioned
bears directly on the aesthetic or stylistic as these might be considered
in terms of surface properties of architecture. This is not because I think
that they are unimportant, quite the opposite - syntax has been used on
projects by people as diverse as John Simpson, Terry Farrel, Norman Foster,
Richard Rogers, Buschow Henley, SOM, Chapman Taylor and many others - its
just that getting space to perform as desired in social terms as an aspect
of habitation is a part of the whole choreography of architectural design.
All stylistic approaches recognise this and pursue it for their own ends,
and so all need to understand the implications of what they propose.
Im sure others will be able to add to this, and probably disagree with my
cut on it, but perhaps it'll get the ball rolling. Of course there is no
real substitute for trying it out on a real project to see whether it
really has any value for you, your design process and practice....
Alan
> >
> > . . . thought that space syntax could help me better design urban spaces
> >and improve the human relationship in the development. So far I did not
> >succeed. I do have to say that I do not have an indepth knowledge of
> >space syntax, but so far all I have seem is pretty desapointing from the
> >project apllication point of view. Do you share this feeling?
> >Luciano Borghesi
> >Rossi Residencial - Brazil
> >
> >
>
> Dear Luciano Borghesi,
>
> Thank you for you email - it is good to hear that others have similar
>problems with Space Syntax. It would be intersting to hear from any of
>the research members of this list if there are any good examples of
>projects where Space Syntax was used in the design and can be shown to
>have improved the resulting development.
________________________________________________
Alan Penn
Director, VR Centre for the Built Environment
The Bartlett School of Architecture and Planning
1-19 Torrington Place (Room 335)
University College London, Gower Street, London WC1E 6BT
tel. (+44) (0)171 387 7050 ext 5919 fax. (+44) (0)171 916 1887
mobile. (+44) (0)411 696875
email. [log in to unmask]
www. http://www.vr.ucl.ac.uk/
________________________________________________
%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%
|
