Re: axial maps

Hi all,

A phrase Jake used touched a chord with me; "talking about what matters - how space may or may not influence people's lives."  In trying to get a grasp on Space Syntax through its methodology I feel I have been peeling an onion - always another method but never a central core theory which these methods are intended to explain.

Alan suggests I am "trying to neaten things up too much", but for my part I have found throughout my readings a pervasive feeling that there is a central subject which is never explicitly stated, and it is this that I am trying to find.  I was not clear that I felt like that until Alan wrote that he is "not holding back a deeper understanding"; well it may be absurd, but that is JUST the impression I got (and perhaps it is what has frustrated other outsiders). 

I should say right now that all this is just the way it has struck me - I'm not saying that this is how it is, I'm trying to find out how it is.

So where did I get that idea from?  The writing on space syntax, both in the press and specialist papers, seems to concentrate on techniques and on related issues in society, but seems to miss out the essential link between them.  It gives the impression that space syntax is a branch of mathematics which just happens to be applied to maps of towns.  

Alan writes that "words axial lines represent linear properties of a spatial pattern etc. they happen also to represent lines of sight along which people may move".  It seems to me quite the other way round.  The study of linear properties of spatial patterns IS a branch of mathematics - graph theory I believe.  Graph theory is an important tool used by spacesyntax, but not its purpose (is it?).

Surely the reason for drawing the lines in the first place is what Jake said; to explore how space may influence people's lives.  Perhaps this blurring of purpose dates back to the setting up of a Space Syntax Lab., instead of a Social Logic of Space Lab.?

It seems to me that the 'core theory' is that there is a Social Logic implicit in the Syntax of Space.  That is not the only thing you can analyze with the syntax of space, but it is the purpose of (most) space syntax papers as far as I can see.  And purpose is important, it is the purpose of a study which lets you determine exactly what tools to use to test your ideas, and to judge your success.

To be more explicit about the social logic as I understand it, it is a 4-stage theory that;

1) Spatial configuration affects what people can see and where they can go (pretty obvious).  

2) This affects how people can find their way through a spatial complex, AND affects the possible interactions between different people & groups of people (would anyone argue with that?).

3) The combined effects of navigation & interaction factors influence where people go in fact:  global configuration affects local movement patterns (all other things being equal, a change in configuration changes patterns of movement)

4) Movement of people is a causal factor in many important social issues.  (What is burglary rate but 'where the burglar went'?  What is interaction but "where two people went"? and other indicators like shop rents or shopping centre failure are again directly caused by whether people go past / into the shop).

I am not suggesting it is simple, of course. There is plenty of complexity in working out what aspects of configuration have particular effects - lots of room for diverse methods of measurement & correlation - which I guess is what is going on with all the work at UCL and elsewhere.

Neither am I suggesting that this theory is the only thing you can investigate about buildings using graph theory. Hillier gives an interesting account of using a sort of finite element integration to measure the perceptual centre of irregular solids (if I remember rightly) in Space is the Machine.  But this isn't Space syntax is it?  Or should I say, it is not 'Social logic?  Is that different?

I am going on about this because this seems to me to be lying unsaid within much of the writing.  Alan writes that "it would be very unwise to postulate 'mechanisms' that say how space leads to behaviour. This doesn't mean that we don't have some hunches about what might be happening - these are the hunches that guide the research "

But how do you carry out research if you are not FIRST clear about what you think might be happening?  Doesn't research consist of having a hunch and then testing it out to see if it works consistently?   And isn't that then a testable theory?  Besides which, if I am even roughly right in what I just wrote, the theory is a lot more than a hunch.  It may not have the certainty of mathematics, but hey! this is social science!  It has a fairly convincing logic to it just in layman's terms (which is about my limit), and it must surely be fairly well evidenced by now.

Which brings me right back to my first question - why draw straight lines?  Why not make a map with curvy lines connecting nodes?    I just cannot believe that it happened by chance and then was found to make a good correlation with movement patterns.  Isn't it because it is thought that the number of intermediate points of visual fixation between start & finish of a journey corresponds to how difficult the journey seems?  There may or may not be evidence for this, but it could be collected couldn’t it? 

For me it is also important because it gives some humanity to the study.  It is what is going on for people, not for statistics.  It tells us about otherwise unmentioned properties of (built) space which have not been accessed before.  It makes space syntax worth bothering with.

Am I getting warm yet?

regards,

Tom Dine


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