Environment and Planning B: Urban Analytics and City Science

A common objection to the space syntax analysis of cities is that even in its own terms the technique of using a nonuniform line representation of space and analysing it by measures that are essentially topological ignores too much geometric and metric detail to be credible. In this paper it is argued that far from ignoring geometric and metric properties the ‘line graph’ internalises them into its structure of the graph and in doing so allows the graph analysis to pick up the nonlocal, or extrinsic, properties of spaces that are critical to the movement dynamics through which a city evolves its essential structures. Nonlocal properties are those which are defined by the relation of elements to all others in the system, rather than those which are intrinsic to the element itself. The method also leads to a powerful analysis of urban structures because cities are essentially nonlocal systems.

As the pace of organisational change accelerates and as new technologies demand more rapid responses from organisations to changing conditions in their business environment, buildings are being called on to play an active role in helping to generate new organisational structures and in facilitating individual communication. This raises questions not only of the nature of organisational structure and of how communication technologies will affect that, but also of the possible mechanisms by which spatial structure can affect patterns of interaction in the work organisation. In this paper we will review two recent research-led design projects in which space syntax techniques were used to help define the building brief for an organisation which depends for its market lead on its ability to innovate. Building on research into the design of research laboratories, we found that patterns of space use and movement generated by spatial configuration have a direct impact on the frequency of contact between workers in office-based organisations. The frequency of contact is shown in turn to have an impact on work-related communications cited as ‘useful’ by questionnaire. These patterns are found to be ‘system effects’ in that they cannot be attributed to an individual worker's desk location but appear to result from the configuration of the whole system of spaces through which people move in their daily work, and have detectable effects on the mean ‘usefulness’ to others of all workers in a part of a building. The analysis suggests, however, that spatial integration alone may be insufficient to support flexible working and that spatial differentiation is necessary to provide the range of environments needed by different types of work activity.

The prehistoric cultural landscape of Chaco Canyon is made up of monumental great houses and small houses. The Chaco Canyon architectural record has been extensively studied, yet the relationship between great and small houses remains a fundamental problem of Southwest archaeology. By using space syntax access analyses, I examine in this research the spatial organisation of great and small houses and compare the two structures in terms of form and function. Space syntax is used to analyse twenty small houses and eleven discrete room blocks from three great houses. Access graphs are constructed and used to generate syntactic data. These data are examined by: (1) exploratory data analyses to identify temporal patterning in spatial integration and control; (2) difference factor analyses; (3) the identification of spatial phenotypes; and (4) analyses of inequality or functional genotypes. Statistically significant differences among integration values for both small and great houses over time are demonstrated. Difference factor analyses identify a robust spatial structure for small houses. This strong structure is a result of differences in spatial integration between built space and built form, and between spatial functions. Great houses are found to have a much weaker spatial structure. The results of this research are used to evaluate the spatial implications of the currently proposed Chaco great house models. Syntactical analyses suggest that it is unlikely that any one model fits all the great houses. The small houses appear domestic in nature and organisation. However, there is also evidence that not all small houses are equal: functional specialisation may be present. Examining the social and spatial relationships of kivas and mealing bin rooms at both great and small houses seems a promising avenue for future inquiry.

In this article an attempt is made to understand the relationship between the spatial structure of museum layouts and the patterns of visitors' exploration and encounter. Eight art museum settings are analysed by using space syntax. The analysis suggests that the configuration of museum layouts provides a structure for the exploration of the collections and buildings by visitors. Layout also modulates the pattern of coawareness as well as the pattern of encounter between visitors as they circulate through exhibition spaces. The overall effects of museum layouts can be described by two models: the deterministic model, which dictates viewing sequences and channels encounters in limited ways; and the probabilistic model, which modulates exploration and encounter statistically according to the syntactic properties of the layout. The findings imply that curators and designers alike can work with the layout to differentiate and yet control the possible experiences of visitors without imposing a rigid spatial pedagogy.

Space syntax, as developed at the Bartlett, University College London, proposes a fundamental relationship between the configuration of space in a city and the way that it functions. The analysis of space in terms of its configurational properties—or syntax—may, according to the theory, allow us to determine some aspects of the functioning of cities. It has been the aim of the work described in this paper to test this proposition in five Dutch cities, and to try to explore the nature of any fundamental space — function relation in the Dutch city reflected by space syntax. The results include a basic confirmation of the ability of space syntax methodology to postdict the intensity of the occupation of public space by people in the cities studied at two levels—at the level of the individual space embedded in the local area, and at the level of the local area embedded in the whole city. This second level may be something particular to the Dutch city and it is argued that it may arise—in spite of variation in conditions such as population and housing density—because of certain homogeneities in the spatial and functional structure of the Dutch city and out of certain historical and practical conditions affecting the expansion and development of the Dutch city.

In this paper I will present a methodology for the stepwise construction of complex polyhedra from basic primitive polyhedra by using a vector representation as a generalization of the two-dimensional vector approach used for the construction of polygons. Starting with the concept of an atomic polyhedral cell, a voxel, I will construct configurations of polyhedra through the stepwise ‘gluing’ of equal and opposite faces. A vector approach for the representation of polyhedra, in which polyhedra are represented as a closed loop of polygonal faces which in turn are represented as a closed loop of edge vectors, is proposed. A rule is postulated for the joining of two polyhedra in face-to-face contact through the addition of equal and opposite faces where such faces are an extension of equal and opposite vectors. Examples of cubic constructions and octahedral-tetrahedral constructions are given.

In this paper we consider how viewing population distribution as a landscape can aid our understanding of urban morphology and process. Such surfaces are characterised by a highly positively skewed distribution and usually appear ‘spikey’ when viewed obliquely. Two methods are suggested to overcome this problem, namely local and focal transformations. An alternative measure of population density, that of linear density, is suggested as a way of normalising the data. Quadratic smoothing is suggested as a method of focal transformation that allows surface properties to be quantified and generalised. With the Greater London area as an example, population surfaces are visualised in a variety of ways including animation. Properties of the surface such as slope and curvature are calculated and visualised. These help to describe the morphology of the London area population with respect to its evolution over time, planning regulation, and transport links. More sophisticated properties of the surface including morphometric features and inverted basins are identified and related to urban neighbourhoods.

The contrast between the city and its surroundings is sharp not only in the United States, but also in the Netherlands. There are no reasons to support any expectation of a spontaneous back-to-the-city movement in the near future. In 1997 the Dutch government announced a new policy to strengthen urban districts: the redifferentiation of the housing stock and the restructuring of a large number of urban districts with a large share of social rented dwellings, mostly in multifamily estates. The Dutch government will spend about US$2 billion before 2010 to promote urban restructuring, namely, the demolition of low-quality dwellings, upgrading, renovation, and amalgamation of units, the sale of rented property, and improvement of the urban structure and public spaces. Although a number of fundamental questions have yet to be answered, the Dutch government's new urban policy seems promising. Strengthening urban housing markets would appear to be easier in the Netherlands—with a comparatively wide range of incomes among the urban population—than in the United States, where the income gap between the city core and the suburbs may be too wide to be bridged by limited federal and state programs. Should the Dutch policy to strengthen the urban housing market prove successful, the next step would be to support the restructuring of the growth centers built in the 1970s and 1980s.