Hi Alan

I appreciate your patience with me getting stuck on measurements
when you are talking about the design process, but your last post had
a sentence that really worried me -

"Axial lines represent linearity (stringiness' in Bill's original definition)
of bits of space."

Is this a metaphysical statement?  Surely you are not postulating
linearity in the aether?  I am concerned that vague and untestable
definitions play into the hands of those who think Space Syntax is just
numerology with pretty diagrams.

In contrast to this, you say that SS is about mapping between social
forms and spatial structures, which I'm sure is right.  But how?  There
seem to be plenty of methods of measuring spatial structures, and
plenty of analysis of social forms, but where are the mappings
between the two?  What human affordance  does each method
measure?

Certainly, at the higher level, you have the correlation between natural
movement and axial integration, but what are the social-to-spatial
structure mappings that account for this?   As you say, we always have
to be careful about causal theories.  We have to be careful to get them
right, and test them to show that they work.  What else does research
mean?

I don't have a 'formal' understanding of design, but I know what I do.  I
agree with Adipat, we don't need to try to 'derive' whole social systems
from spatial layouts, nor are we looking for pre-set solutions.   We
know very well that there is no question of a 'design machine,' even if
anyone wanted it.  (imagine a designer who wanted to be replaced by
a machine!).

What we need are comprehensible ideas about how space affects the
way people use it.  In my experience, real design happens in a way
unobservable to the observer, as the architect performs mental
juggling with  ideas about spaces-with-activities and critical
constraints to find the 'core problems' which set 'The Idea' for the
design.

Regards, Tom

On Tue, 20 Jul 2004 18:11:35 +0100, Alan Penn
<[log in to unmask]> wrote:

>That is not quite what I am trying to say. Axial lines - and all the
>other 'syntax representation maps' - are just that: a representation of
>some aspects of the morphology of open space. Axial lines
represent
>linearity ('stringiness' in Bill's original definition) of bits of
>space. But space syntax is more than just axial lines; it is about the
>mapping between social forms and spatial structures, and social
forms
>are about relations between people. Thus the key theories are about
>effects of spatial morphology on co-presence between people. The
fact
>that flow rates of people correlate with measures of axial maps has
>consequences for co-presence. You are more likely to bump into
people on
>more integrated axial lines than on less integrated one (other things
>being equal), hence it is possible for spatial morphology to have
social
>consequences. This is all very easy to say, but Adipat's original
>question was about how do you ACTUALLY USE syntax in design.
This to my
>mind is a more difficult question to answer since relatively little is
>formally understood about how people design at all in the first place.