Adipat Virdi wrote:
>
> 1. How does the analysis of space, from a configurational standpoint,
> ACTUALLY help to look at the way a building is being used, either well
or
> badly? If the brief tells you about the intentions for how the
building is
> to be used and user needs dictate how the spatial layout should be
> supporting these, then what REAL information can Configurational
Analysis
> add to this that indicates the 'good' or 'bad' performance of a
building?
> I
> am presuming here that Configurational Analysis will give indicators
of
> performance (if any) through looking at the functionality of the
building.
> If so, then surely the information needs to be information about the
> relationship between people, their activites (or activity patterns)
and
> the
> environment within which they engage with their activities?
>

This is a useful question. My answer turns around the use of analysis in
the dialogue between the client or user and the design team. Since both
the brief and user needs should ideally be expressed in the abstract -
eg. "we need the building to be secure" (rather than in terms of
possible design solutions "we want only one entrance") - then what
configurational analysis allows is a way of tying together our
understanding of precedent cases (buildings in the past that work well
or that fail) with the aspects of design that may relate to functional
outcomes. The requirement for security for instance can be achieved
perhaps by only having one entrance, but might well be achieved with
many entrances and a different form of policing space. Phrasing brief
and user needs in terms of design solutions rather than performance
requirements is a highly risky thing to do and is not good briefing
practice because it closes down your field of possible solutions. But
performance based specifiations need knowledge of functional effect of
design to turn them into design solutions - this is where
configurational analysis comes in - in helping to generate that
knowledge, and then in helping to apply it in the design process.

Quite often the only way that a user or a client may be able to
communicate their requirements is by pointing to examples - of both good
and bad. Again, configurational analysis can help in this process by
helping to translate the concrete into the abstract, and so opening the
designer/client dialogue. What the whole design process is really about
to my mind is learning - designers must learn from users and clients,
and users learn from designers. At the end of the design process you
have a well formulated brief alongside a possible design solution, and a
team of designers, clients and users all of whom sign up to the design
solution because it has been tested and they have seen the evidence for
why this solution is the one they need. Analysis (not just
configurational) plays a key role in generating that dialogue and in
learning of this sort.

> 2. Configurational analysis infers that its first order measurables
are
> Connectivity, Integration, Control Value and Global Choice. Are there
> second
> order measurables that derive from the interplay of these? For
instance,
> when talking about Intelligibility, does this mean the interplay
between
> connectivity and integration? If yes, then what are the second order
> measurables when looking at the interplay between the other first
order
> measurables on one another?
>
In general terms, we now talk of all local to global correlations as
some form of 'intelligibility' (connectivity and control value are
local, as are restricted radius measures, while choice radius n and
integration radius n are global). We have not got good descriptive names
for the other correlations... 'synergy' tends to be used for RA3:Ran...
but finding a meaningful name for these measures is really hard.

> Alan Penn
Professor of Architectural and Urban Computing
The Bartlett School of Graduate Studies
University College London
Gower Street
London WC1E 6BT
+44 (0)20 7679 5919
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www.vr.ucl.ac.uk
www.spacesyntax.org