Architectural research - using space syntax methods to represent and quantify patterns of space, I investigate the effect of the design of the built environment on the social and economic function of organisations and communities. Address: 22 Gordon Street, London WC1H0QB
space Abstract: In this paper we report on ongoing research in which the implications of urban sc... more space Abstract: In this paper we report on ongoing research in which the implications of urban scale pervasive computing (always and everywhere present) are investigated for urban life and urban design in the heritage environment of the city of Bath. We explore a theoretical framework for understanding and designing pervasive systems as an integral part of the urban landscape. We develop a framework based on Hillier’s Space Syntax theories and Kostakos ’ PSP framework which encompasses the analysis of space and spatial patterns, alongside the consideration of personal, social and public interaction spaces to capture the complex relationship between pervasive systems, urban space in general and the impact of the deployment of pervasive systems on people’s relationships to heritage and to each other. We describe these methodological issues in detail before giving examples from early studies of the types of result we are beginning to find. 1.
The "Space Syntax Toolkit" is a QGIS plug-in for spatial network and statistical analys... more The "Space Syntax Toolkit" is a QGIS plug-in for spatial network and statistical analysis. It provides a front-end for the depthmapX software within QGIS, offering user-friendly space syntax analysis workflows in a GIS environment. It is primarily aimed at supporting the space syntax methodology, and enhancing it with GIS data, analysis and visualisation features. Nevertheless, its functionality is of general benefit to QGIS users by introducing tools for exploratory spatial data analysis. In this article we present the "Space Syntax Toolkit", describing its principles and implementation, the features of its two initial modules - "Graph Analysis" and "Attribute Explorer" - and give indication of future developments.
The "Space Syntax Toolkit" is a QGIS plug-in for spatial network and statistical analys... more The "Space Syntax Toolkit" is a QGIS plug-in for spatial network and statistical analysis. It provides a front-end for the depthmapX software within QGIS, offering user-friendly space syntax analysis workflows in a GIS environment. It is primarily aimed at supporting the space syntax methodology, and enhancing it with GIS data, analysis and visualisation features. Nevertheless, its functionality is of general benefit to QGIS users by introducing tools for exploratory spatial data analysis. In this article we present the "Space Syntax Toolkit", describing its principles and implementation, the features of its two initial modules - "Graph Analysis" and "Attribute Explorer" - and give indication of future developments.
Bringing together the notions of mental impasses in problem solving and perceptual restructuring ... more Bringing together the notions of mental impasses in problem solving and perceptual restructuring of spatial information during re-orientation the present study investigates brain activity in two real-world pilot experiments on spatial reasoning: an orientation pointing task and a Sudoku puzzle. The working hypothesis of this research is that if we approach wayfinding as an instance of problem solving we can create intellectual bridges between labbased experimental situations and real-world scenarios and adopt new perspectives on existing findings. Two pilot ERP experiments have been conducted in an attempt to check the feasibility of mobile EEG (Emotiv) in detecting a distinct pattern of brain activity during the representational update in real-world spatial problem solving. Initial results in both cases suggest a P3like component might be the brain’s signature of a representational update.
Cities appear to display similar features and mechanisms across different geographies. This pheno... more Cities appear to display similar features and mechanisms across different geographies. This phenomenon seems to hold despite planning intentionality. In questioning the nature of this convergent behaviour and the role of path dependence in urban evolution, an attempt is made in this presentation to examine how cities retrieve their relational dependencies between street structures and other formal and functional attributes after the imposition of large scale planning interventions. For the purpose of this investigation, empirical models of historical data are constructed in order to identify the effect of planning on the natural organisation that entwines urban dependencies. The hypothesis is that where planning interventions are more dominant, this natural organisation will be destabilized. The results confirm the hypothesis true for Manhattan and Barcelona. In general, the cases under study are found to share a natural dependency between the network structure of streets, street wi...
Philosophical transactions of the Royal Society of London. Series B, Biological sciences, Jan 19, 2018
Built structures, such as animal nests or buildings that humans occupy, serve two overarching pur... more Built structures, such as animal nests or buildings that humans occupy, serve two overarching purposes: shelter and a space where individuals interact. The former has dominated much of the discussion in the literature. But, as the study of collective behaviour expands, it is time to elucidate the role of the built environment in shaping collective outcomes. Collective behaviour in social animals emerges from interactions, and collective cognition in humans emerges from communication and coordination. These collective actions have vast economic implications in human societies and critical fitness consequences in animal systems. Despite the obvious influence of space on interactions, because spatial proximity is necessary for an interaction to occur, spatial constraints are rarely considered in studies of collective behaviour or collective cognition. An interdisciplinary exchange between behavioural ecologists, evolutionary biologists, cognitive scientists, social scientists, architec...
Revisiting Jane Jacob's notion of locality knowledge, this paper argues that combining commer... more Revisiting Jane Jacob's notion of locality knowledge, this paper argues that combining commercial space and dwelling fosters social, economic and architectural processes that come about by factors of local urban economies. The mixing of uses merges the relation of 'what one does' and 'where one lives' in a particular building whereby urban and architectural scale effects come into place. Comparisons of commercial-residential buildings in two local districts of contrasting morphologies in the city of Cardiff are studied in the context of their urban-architectural design scales. From an urban scale analysis, attention is given to the distribution of commercial-residential buildings in relation to spatial centrality; from an architectural perspective, it examines the way residential building adapts commercial additions, defining how different functions associate distinctive adaptable typologies depending on the building's urban location. By using syntactical and...
This paper describes Pangea, a new software workbench developed to enable the flexible analysis o... more This paper describes Pangea, a new software workbench developed to enable the flexible analysis of three dimensional 'worlds ' composed of objects and the spaces between them. By developing a simple application in which 3-D shapes can be created and edited, and in which each shape holds arbitary length lists of attribute data and a software 'script', Pangea provides a customisable tool for the analysis of 3-D spatial relations. Descriptions are given of the use of Pangea to develop a range of analytic and design support tools including the development of isovists and axial maps within three-dimensional models. 1
Abstract. The fewest-line axial map, often simply referred to as the `axial map', is one of ... more Abstract. The fewest-line axial map, often simply referred to as the `axial map', is one of the primary tools of space syntax. Its natural language definition has allowed researchers to draw consistent maps that present a concise description of architectural space; it has been established that graph measures obtained from the map are useful for the analysis of pedestrian movement patterns and activities related to such movement: for example, the location of services or of crime. However, the definition has proved difficult to translate into formal language by mathematicians and algorithmic implementers alike. This has meant that space syntax has been criticised for a lack of rigour in the definition of one of its fundamental representations. Here we clarify the original definition of the fewest-line axial map and show that it can be implemented algorithmically. We show that the original definition leads to maps similar to those currently drawn by hand, and we demonstrate that t...
Theories of space and the physical reality of organisations have been widely ignored by organisat... more Theories of space and the physical reality of organisations have been widely ignored by organisational theory, as Clegg and Kornberger asserted in their 2006 edited volume on „Space, Organisations and Management Theory‟. To contribute to the understanding of the spatiality of organisations and the organisational implications of space, this paper suggests investigating the multiple networks in which people engage. Considering that an organisation can be described as a „social unit with some particular purposes‟ (Shafritz et al. 2005) the basic phenomenon to investigate in organisational theory could be seen as humans and their relationships, aiming to achieve certain goals. Those relationships between people can either be governed by spatial rules, such as proximity or visibility, but also by transpatial rules, which includes conceptual closeness between people such as common preferences, attitudes or behaviours. Drawing on an overview of network related theories of social form, i.e....
Space syntax derives from a set of analytic measures of configuration that have been shown to cor... more Space syntax derives from a set of analytic measures of configuration that have been shown to correlate well with how people move through and use buildings and urban environments. Space syntax represents the open space of an environment in terms of the intervisibility of points in space. The measures are thus purely configurational, and take no account of attractors, nor do they make any assumptions about origins and destinations or path planning. Space syntax has found that, despite many proposed higher-level cognitive models, there appears to be a fundamental process that informs human and social usage of an environment. In this paper we describe an exosomatic visual architecture, based on space syntax visibility graphs, giving many agents simultaneous access to the same pre-processed information about the configuration of a space layout. Results of experiments in a simulated retail environment show that a surprisingly simple ‘random next step’ based rule outperforms a more comple...
Groups of mobile sighted individuals, whether insect, animal or human, behave in complex ways as ... more Groups of mobile sighted individuals, whether insect, animal or human, behave in complex ways as they search their environment for the resources needed to live. Amongst urban human societies search behaviour is complex and emergent since it relates to settlement morphology and land use pattern, both of which themselves result from human activity. Recently, agent simulation experiments have been used to study patterns of emergent behaviour in the dynamics of crowd movement and in the construction of paths through open space. Here we report simulations in which agents are given long distance vision and direct their behaviour in response to information from the entire cone of vision afforded by the morphology of the local environment and their gaze direction. We show that the morphology of the environment and the location and aggregation patterns of resources within that environment affect the efficiency with which these agents can conduct their search. Linear streets and clustered agg...
How is it that a representation of the state of a system ? such as the axial map ? canexplain dyn... more How is it that a representation of the state of a system ? such as the axial map ? canexplain dynamic behaviour such as movement flows? This paper investigates therelationship between spatial configuration and behaviours that take place in time ?specifically, movement. A method is presented for incorporating time systematicallyin a representation of spatial configuration. This is based on assuming a universalmaximum walking speed for pedestrians, and it is shown that the resulting threedimensional mapping of space-time can be constructed from sections of the surfaceof cones. Properties of this representation are investigated and first it is shown thata uniform grid results in an approximately flat surface in space-time. All the mainforms of deformation of the urban grid are found to result in ?warping? the spacetimesurface of the uniform grid into valleys and ridges. A method is proposed forsumming space-time surfaces constructed from all root locations. Finally, theimplications for...
It is often proposed that the design of the physical workplace influences social interaction and ... more It is often proposed that the design of the physical workplace influences social interaction and therefore organisational behaviour in one way or the other. Yet there is little accordance among scholars on how exactly the relationship between the social space and the social structure of an organisation is constituted. In order to explore this relationship, we combine an interpretive, phenomenological approach with a correlational, syntactic approach. Using the example of a workplace environment studied on multiple layers as well as in detail we propose that physical space influences the formation of social structure and organisational behaviour in manifold, but analytically tractable ways. The application of qualitative and quantitative methods in tandem proves fruitful for understanding the complex phenomena that characterise the emergence of organisational culture.
This paper describes the application of space syntax techniques (Hillier & Hanson, 1984; Hillier,... more This paper describes the application of space syntax techniques (Hillier & Hanson, 1984; Hillier, 1996) for the development of virtual environments presenting TOWER, the Theatre of Work, which allows project members to be aware of project relevant activities as well as to establish social relationships to intensify team coherence (Prinz, et al. 2003). Different prototypes illustrate the evolution of the use of various rules for the creation of the Theatre of Work “stage”. Although the city metaphor has previously been applied in some approaches for data visualisation (Flavia, 1997), very little attention has so far of awareness and co-presence of users associated with thematically related groups of objects. Here we report on the implementation of space syntax derived conceptual models and illustrate associated implementation issues of dynamic information mapping in Theatre of Work stage visualisations. We further review user experiences of the system and discuss some of the limits i...
Spatial network accessibility was found to be significant when associating with house prices usin... more Spatial network accessibility was found to be significant when associating with house prices using the hedonic price approach. These results suggest some individuals are willing to pay more for spatial isolation while some individuals will pay more for spatial co-presence. An obvious limitation of earlier research is a lack of comparative analysis between cities. Focusing on a single case study reduces the generalisability of the results and the extent to which different spatial contexts might value accessibility differently. The aim of this research was therefore to study the extent to which spatial network accessibility effects differ across cities in the UK. A hedonic price approach was used to explore the extent to which these differences are related to social-economic-mobility factors. Results show, both visually and quantitatively, the economic value of accessibility, measured using space syntax analysis, differs across geographical regions. The accessibility effect on house p...
space Abstract: In this paper we report on ongoing research in which the implications of urban sc... more space Abstract: In this paper we report on ongoing research in which the implications of urban scale pervasive computing (always and everywhere present) are investigated for urban life and urban design in the heritage environment of the city of Bath. We explore a theoretical framework for understanding and designing pervasive systems as an integral part of the urban landscape. We develop a framework based on Hillier’s Space Syntax theories and Kostakos ’ PSP framework which encompasses the analysis of space and spatial patterns, alongside the consideration of personal, social and public interaction spaces to capture the complex relationship between pervasive systems, urban space in general and the impact of the deployment of pervasive systems on people’s relationships to heritage and to each other. We describe these methodological issues in detail before giving examples from early studies of the types of result we are beginning to find. 1.
The "Space Syntax Toolkit" is a QGIS plug-in for spatial network and statistical analys... more The "Space Syntax Toolkit" is a QGIS plug-in for spatial network and statistical analysis. It provides a front-end for the depthmapX software within QGIS, offering user-friendly space syntax analysis workflows in a GIS environment. It is primarily aimed at supporting the space syntax methodology, and enhancing it with GIS data, analysis and visualisation features. Nevertheless, its functionality is of general benefit to QGIS users by introducing tools for exploratory spatial data analysis. In this article we present the "Space Syntax Toolkit", describing its principles and implementation, the features of its two initial modules - "Graph Analysis" and "Attribute Explorer" - and give indication of future developments.
The "Space Syntax Toolkit" is a QGIS plug-in for spatial network and statistical analys... more The "Space Syntax Toolkit" is a QGIS plug-in for spatial network and statistical analysis. It provides a front-end for the depthmapX software within QGIS, offering user-friendly space syntax analysis workflows in a GIS environment. It is primarily aimed at supporting the space syntax methodology, and enhancing it with GIS data, analysis and visualisation features. Nevertheless, its functionality is of general benefit to QGIS users by introducing tools for exploratory spatial data analysis. In this article we present the "Space Syntax Toolkit", describing its principles and implementation, the features of its two initial modules - "Graph Analysis" and "Attribute Explorer" - and give indication of future developments.
Bringing together the notions of mental impasses in problem solving and perceptual restructuring ... more Bringing together the notions of mental impasses in problem solving and perceptual restructuring of spatial information during re-orientation the present study investigates brain activity in two real-world pilot experiments on spatial reasoning: an orientation pointing task and a Sudoku puzzle. The working hypothesis of this research is that if we approach wayfinding as an instance of problem solving we can create intellectual bridges between labbased experimental situations and real-world scenarios and adopt new perspectives on existing findings. Two pilot ERP experiments have been conducted in an attempt to check the feasibility of mobile EEG (Emotiv) in detecting a distinct pattern of brain activity during the representational update in real-world spatial problem solving. Initial results in both cases suggest a P3like component might be the brain’s signature of a representational update.
Cities appear to display similar features and mechanisms across different geographies. This pheno... more Cities appear to display similar features and mechanisms across different geographies. This phenomenon seems to hold despite planning intentionality. In questioning the nature of this convergent behaviour and the role of path dependence in urban evolution, an attempt is made in this presentation to examine how cities retrieve their relational dependencies between street structures and other formal and functional attributes after the imposition of large scale planning interventions. For the purpose of this investigation, empirical models of historical data are constructed in order to identify the effect of planning on the natural organisation that entwines urban dependencies. The hypothesis is that where planning interventions are more dominant, this natural organisation will be destabilized. The results confirm the hypothesis true for Manhattan and Barcelona. In general, the cases under study are found to share a natural dependency between the network structure of streets, street wi...
Philosophical transactions of the Royal Society of London. Series B, Biological sciences, Jan 19, 2018
Built structures, such as animal nests or buildings that humans occupy, serve two overarching pur... more Built structures, such as animal nests or buildings that humans occupy, serve two overarching purposes: shelter and a space where individuals interact. The former has dominated much of the discussion in the literature. But, as the study of collective behaviour expands, it is time to elucidate the role of the built environment in shaping collective outcomes. Collective behaviour in social animals emerges from interactions, and collective cognition in humans emerges from communication and coordination. These collective actions have vast economic implications in human societies and critical fitness consequences in animal systems. Despite the obvious influence of space on interactions, because spatial proximity is necessary for an interaction to occur, spatial constraints are rarely considered in studies of collective behaviour or collective cognition. An interdisciplinary exchange between behavioural ecologists, evolutionary biologists, cognitive scientists, social scientists, architec...
Revisiting Jane Jacob's notion of locality knowledge, this paper argues that combining commer... more Revisiting Jane Jacob's notion of locality knowledge, this paper argues that combining commercial space and dwelling fosters social, economic and architectural processes that come about by factors of local urban economies. The mixing of uses merges the relation of 'what one does' and 'where one lives' in a particular building whereby urban and architectural scale effects come into place. Comparisons of commercial-residential buildings in two local districts of contrasting morphologies in the city of Cardiff are studied in the context of their urban-architectural design scales. From an urban scale analysis, attention is given to the distribution of commercial-residential buildings in relation to spatial centrality; from an architectural perspective, it examines the way residential building adapts commercial additions, defining how different functions associate distinctive adaptable typologies depending on the building's urban location. By using syntactical and...
This paper describes Pangea, a new software workbench developed to enable the flexible analysis o... more This paper describes Pangea, a new software workbench developed to enable the flexible analysis of three dimensional 'worlds ' composed of objects and the spaces between them. By developing a simple application in which 3-D shapes can be created and edited, and in which each shape holds arbitary length lists of attribute data and a software 'script', Pangea provides a customisable tool for the analysis of 3-D spatial relations. Descriptions are given of the use of Pangea to develop a range of analytic and design support tools including the development of isovists and axial maps within three-dimensional models. 1
Abstract. The fewest-line axial map, often simply referred to as the `axial map', is one of ... more Abstract. The fewest-line axial map, often simply referred to as the `axial map', is one of the primary tools of space syntax. Its natural language definition has allowed researchers to draw consistent maps that present a concise description of architectural space; it has been established that graph measures obtained from the map are useful for the analysis of pedestrian movement patterns and activities related to such movement: for example, the location of services or of crime. However, the definition has proved difficult to translate into formal language by mathematicians and algorithmic implementers alike. This has meant that space syntax has been criticised for a lack of rigour in the definition of one of its fundamental representations. Here we clarify the original definition of the fewest-line axial map and show that it can be implemented algorithmically. We show that the original definition leads to maps similar to those currently drawn by hand, and we demonstrate that t...
Theories of space and the physical reality of organisations have been widely ignored by organisat... more Theories of space and the physical reality of organisations have been widely ignored by organisational theory, as Clegg and Kornberger asserted in their 2006 edited volume on „Space, Organisations and Management Theory‟. To contribute to the understanding of the spatiality of organisations and the organisational implications of space, this paper suggests investigating the multiple networks in which people engage. Considering that an organisation can be described as a „social unit with some particular purposes‟ (Shafritz et al. 2005) the basic phenomenon to investigate in organisational theory could be seen as humans and their relationships, aiming to achieve certain goals. Those relationships between people can either be governed by spatial rules, such as proximity or visibility, but also by transpatial rules, which includes conceptual closeness between people such as common preferences, attitudes or behaviours. Drawing on an overview of network related theories of social form, i.e....
Space syntax derives from a set of analytic measures of configuration that have been shown to cor... more Space syntax derives from a set of analytic measures of configuration that have been shown to correlate well with how people move through and use buildings and urban environments. Space syntax represents the open space of an environment in terms of the intervisibility of points in space. The measures are thus purely configurational, and take no account of attractors, nor do they make any assumptions about origins and destinations or path planning. Space syntax has found that, despite many proposed higher-level cognitive models, there appears to be a fundamental process that informs human and social usage of an environment. In this paper we describe an exosomatic visual architecture, based on space syntax visibility graphs, giving many agents simultaneous access to the same pre-processed information about the configuration of a space layout. Results of experiments in a simulated retail environment show that a surprisingly simple ‘random next step’ based rule outperforms a more comple...
Groups of mobile sighted individuals, whether insect, animal or human, behave in complex ways as ... more Groups of mobile sighted individuals, whether insect, animal or human, behave in complex ways as they search their environment for the resources needed to live. Amongst urban human societies search behaviour is complex and emergent since it relates to settlement morphology and land use pattern, both of which themselves result from human activity. Recently, agent simulation experiments have been used to study patterns of emergent behaviour in the dynamics of crowd movement and in the construction of paths through open space. Here we report simulations in which agents are given long distance vision and direct their behaviour in response to information from the entire cone of vision afforded by the morphology of the local environment and their gaze direction. We show that the morphology of the environment and the location and aggregation patterns of resources within that environment affect the efficiency with which these agents can conduct their search. Linear streets and clustered agg...
How is it that a representation of the state of a system ? such as the axial map ? canexplain dyn... more How is it that a representation of the state of a system ? such as the axial map ? canexplain dynamic behaviour such as movement flows? This paper investigates therelationship between spatial configuration and behaviours that take place in time ?specifically, movement. A method is presented for incorporating time systematicallyin a representation of spatial configuration. This is based on assuming a universalmaximum walking speed for pedestrians, and it is shown that the resulting threedimensional mapping of space-time can be constructed from sections of the surfaceof cones. Properties of this representation are investigated and first it is shown thata uniform grid results in an approximately flat surface in space-time. All the mainforms of deformation of the urban grid are found to result in ?warping? the spacetimesurface of the uniform grid into valleys and ridges. A method is proposed forsumming space-time surfaces constructed from all root locations. Finally, theimplications for...
It is often proposed that the design of the physical workplace influences social interaction and ... more It is often proposed that the design of the physical workplace influences social interaction and therefore organisational behaviour in one way or the other. Yet there is little accordance among scholars on how exactly the relationship between the social space and the social structure of an organisation is constituted. In order to explore this relationship, we combine an interpretive, phenomenological approach with a correlational, syntactic approach. Using the example of a workplace environment studied on multiple layers as well as in detail we propose that physical space influences the formation of social structure and organisational behaviour in manifold, but analytically tractable ways. The application of qualitative and quantitative methods in tandem proves fruitful for understanding the complex phenomena that characterise the emergence of organisational culture.
This paper describes the application of space syntax techniques (Hillier & Hanson, 1984; Hillier,... more This paper describes the application of space syntax techniques (Hillier & Hanson, 1984; Hillier, 1996) for the development of virtual environments presenting TOWER, the Theatre of Work, which allows project members to be aware of project relevant activities as well as to establish social relationships to intensify team coherence (Prinz, et al. 2003). Different prototypes illustrate the evolution of the use of various rules for the creation of the Theatre of Work “stage”. Although the city metaphor has previously been applied in some approaches for data visualisation (Flavia, 1997), very little attention has so far of awareness and co-presence of users associated with thematically related groups of objects. Here we report on the implementation of space syntax derived conceptual models and illustrate associated implementation issues of dynamic information mapping in Theatre of Work stage visualisations. We further review user experiences of the system and discuss some of the limits i...
Spatial network accessibility was found to be significant when associating with house prices usin... more Spatial network accessibility was found to be significant when associating with house prices using the hedonic price approach. These results suggest some individuals are willing to pay more for spatial isolation while some individuals will pay more for spatial co-presence. An obvious limitation of earlier research is a lack of comparative analysis between cities. Focusing on a single case study reduces the generalisability of the results and the extent to which different spatial contexts might value accessibility differently. The aim of this research was therefore to study the extent to which spatial network accessibility effects differ across cities in the UK. A hedonic price approach was used to explore the extent to which these differences are related to social-economic-mobility factors. Results show, both visually and quantitatively, the economic value of accessibility, measured using space syntax analysis, differs across geographical regions. The accessibility effect on house p...
Proceedings of the 10th International Space Syntax Symposium, Jul 2015
The “Space Syntax Toolkit” is a QGIS plug-in for spatial network and statistical analysis. It pro... more The “Space Syntax Toolkit” is a QGIS plug-in for spatial network and statistical analysis. It provides a front-end for the depthmapX software within QGIS, offering user-friendly space syntax analysis workflows in a GIS environment. It is primarily aimed at supporting the space syntax methodology, and enhancing it with GIS data, analysis and visualisation features. Nevertheless, its functionality is of general benefit to QGIS users by introducing tools for exploratory spatial data analysis. In this article we present the “Space Syntax Toolkit”, describing its principles and implementation, the features of its two initial modules – “Graph Analysis” and “Attribute Explorer” – and give indication of future developments.
Uploads
Papers by Alan Penn