Community prosperity means social, economic and environmental prosperity. Each of these dimensions is strongly influenced by the physical design of the places where people live. Physical design influences human behaviour, which in turn influences community prosperity. The most important aspect of physical design is connectedness. Connectedness can be measured scientifically. Its effects on societal wealth have been identified by UK scientific research over the last forty years.
Category: Space Syntax
-
Portland: city of hub and spoke centrality
Thank you to all the people that kindly hosted me in Portland over the past three days: Portland Bright Lights, the City of Portland, Portland State University, Ankrom Moisan and Portland TriMet. Thank you to everyone that came to hear me speak – five talks in three days was a challenge that I was happy to accept. To those of you who came more than once, I salute your interest as well as your patience. My first presentation, “From highways to handshakes” is now online.
-
Connecting the disconnected – how much is enough?
Yesterday evening, Ed Parham gave a talk at the Graduate School of Design on Space Syntax’s work redesigning unplanned settlements in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia. Despite the really awful weather, which turned Cambridge into a pedestrian sludge, there was a full house.
Ed showed how Jeddah’s unplanned settlements share a common spatial property of being locally walkable but globally disconnected from the bigger movement structure of the city. This supresses the economic potential of these places. To counter this, the Space Syntax team has developed Area Action Plans for dozens of unplanned settlements, identifying opportunities to bridge between the local and global movement networks with new streets lined with commercial activity. These streets allow the unplanned settlements to trade outwards in new ways.
The big question raised by this work is: to what degree should unplanned settlements be reintegrated into the spatial fabric of the city? To a degree, the spatial distinction of these places creates a cultural identity for the inhabitants, with certain social benefits. The risk of reintegration is that this identity will be diluted or even lost by the new flow of movement, social identity and capital through the unplanned areas.
Ed described how, in fact, a spatial hierarchy can be created that leaves much of the original spatial fabric intact, especially the fine-grained, more residential and more spatially segregated fabric that helps to structure the cultural identity of the unplanned settlements. The long audience discussion that followed Ed’s talk showed how relevant the challenge of urban connectivity is to urban practice.
-
Upcoming talk: “From highways to handshakes – taming roads for people”
Monday, 24th January at 6:00pm
Jimmy Mak’s, 221 NW Tenth Ave., Portland ORA conversation with Tim Stonor of the renowned London-based planning firm Space Syntax
When it comes to transportation, planners use “science” for cars but more often “intuition” for pedestrians. Elaborate computer models have been developed to model traffic scenarios for vehicles, but when it comes to forecasting how people will move on two feet, it’s all observation and guesswork. In the 1990s, the London-based firm, Space Syntax, changed all of that. Mapping neighborhoods from a pedestrian eye-level and then applying relatively simple algorithms to model behavior, Space Syntax developed robust new computer predictions that led the way to successfully pedestrianizing such car-choked places as Trafalgar Square in London and Old Maket Square in Nottingham. Today, with 13 offices across the globe, the firm is leading the design and redesign of districts in cities as diverse as Jeddah and Beijing. Stonor will speak about the development of and the ever-expanding use of Space Syntax’s techniques and will offer thoughts on the relationship between the centre and the suburbs in Portland. (more…)
-
Upcoming talk: “Planning the unplanned: An evidence-based approach to design in informal settlements”
Harvard Graduate School of Design, 18th January 2011, 6:30pm
With the world population of slum dwellers set to increase to 2 billion over the next 30 years, the need to provide adequate living conditions for the urban poor is recognised as a major challenge. Political and economic pressure to implement improvements quickly, often means that the contribution slums make to the wider city is not recognised as part of the solution.
Using the case study of his work in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, Ed Parham of Space Syntax will explain how advanced techniques of spatial analysis have been used to identify a core spatial problem at the heart of the slum condition. These techniques have been used further to develop solutions in the form of individual area profiles, city-wide prioritisation strategies, settlement-specific needs-based improvement strategies, and to help generate detailed area action plans. Based on in-depth knowledge of the role and importance of spatial networks in cities, these solutions can be implemented incrementally and flexibly with the long-term aim of reintegrating the unplanned settlements, and their residents, through the minimum disruption.
-
Connectedness & continuity
There is a view that the creation of continuously connected places leads to sameness.
Looking at real places suggests otherwise – witness the distinctly different quarters of Paris, New York’s strikingly heterogeneous local centres, or London’s urban villages. So what is it that makes this possible? One seemingly counterintuitive factor, it turns out, is a continuously connected street network. (more…)
-
J-term course proposal
Instructor Name
Tim StonorProgram/Affiliation
Loeb FellowEmail
tstonor@gsd.harvard.eduPrevious teaching experience
1996-1998 Course Director, Master of Science in Architecture, the Bartlett, University College London.
Current Honorary Senior Lecturer, the Bartlett, University College London.Course title
Introduction to Space Syntax theory, technology and practiceCourse description
Space Syntax is an architectural theory that investigates relationships between spatial layout and a range of social and economic phenomena including patterns of movement, public space use, land use and crime distribution. Built on quantitative analysis and computer technology, Space Syntax provides a set of evidence-based techniques for the analysis of spatial configurations of all kinds, especially where spatial configuration seems to be a significant aspect of human affairs, as it is in buildings and urban areas. Applied in both academic research and practice, Space Syntax treats cities and buildings ‘space first’, that is as the network of spaces that people use and move through. (more…) -
Designing for transaction
Today I gave a presentation to architecture students at the Graduate School of Design titled: “Designing for transaction: the importance of spatial layout, emergence & multi-scale movement”. Here’s the introduction…
“Sites – such as the one you have been asked to look at in Queens – raise important questions about connections: how many, where, for what purpose? At what scale? For what kinds of movement? Land use? Questions that require analysis, foresight and forecasting.
Who is best skilled to judge? Transport planners, planners, architects, sociologists?
-
Augmented reality with Nicco Mele
I had an interesting discussion this morning with Nicco Mele, Visiting Edward R Murrow Lecturer at the Kennedy School of Government, comparing thoughts about the network of the city and the network of cyberspace – each a network of things. I introduced him to Space Syntax and shared a few thoughts I have had since reading “The Cathedral and the Bazaar”, one of the readings on his course: DPI-659 Media, Politics & Power in the Digital Age.
Nicco had earlier sent me a link to a post on Dan Hill’s blog: “The City of Sound“, which added further food for thought about relationships between different kinds networks: digital and spatial. (more…)
-
Email update to colleagues at Space Syntax
Dear All
Warm and friendly wishes from Harvard!
We are one month into term now and I thought you would be interested to hear what I have been up to. To be honest, it feels as if I have been here for 6 months – so much has been happening. (more…)
-
Harvard Urban Planning Organisation
Today I gave a short presentation to urban planning students at the Graduate School of Design titled: “Urban sustainability: the social, economic & environmental influence of spatial layout”. Here’s the introduction…
“In this presentation I will focus on one particular aspect of sustainability: the patterns of human activity – movement, co-presence and interaction – that occur in buildings and cities.
These patterns emerge as the result of design decisions.
I want to show how spatial layout is a critical aspect of design; how spatial layout influences human behaviour and how this has a fundamental bearing on the sustainability of urban places.”
You can find my full presentation here on slideboom.
-
The crisis of modelling
Dear [colleague]
Are you familiar with the attached. I think there’s a connection with the article on modelling that you sent me. I believe we can present Space Syntax as addressing the “crisis of modelling”, in which:
– traditional modelling makes dire predictions about the impact on vehicles of public realm-/public transport-oriented projects are unfounded
– traditional modelling is cumbersome, time-consuming and expensive
– traditional modelling seems overly focused on narrow issues such as gross vehicle movement and less aware of “real” issues such as community severance and economic performance. (more…)
-
Architecture at the edge of knowledge; space syntax at the heart of design
INTRODUCTION
Let me begin at the end with a summary of my presentation. The space syntax approach is more than a computer programme. The beauty – and I think it is a beauty – of the approach is that it combines three key aspects of practice: the first two have been dealt with in depth by Bill Hillier in his presentation and these are architectural theory and computer technology. The third is design experience. In a wide range of design sectors and across all scales, from individual building layouts to entire cities and city regions, over twenty years of practice have demonstrated that space syntax offers architects, like myself, an edge. Whether we see this as an edge over our fellow architects, an edge over the unsustainable processes that have emerged to stifle communications between architects and non-architects or an edge over the unexpected events that shape everyday life, space syntax provides an edge. (more…)
-
New settlements & urban extensions
The physical and spatial form of a settlement structures the potentials for two key outcomes: social interaction and economic trade. These outcomes are cornerstones of sustainability.
Movement, on foot and in vehicles, is the fundamental process that underpins these outcomes. Patterns of movement are shaped by the geometry of the street network. Patterns of land use are shaped by patterns of movement. Patterns of crime and of land value are similarly affected. These processes are not mysterious but, instead, are well researched and understood. (more…)
-
Spatial modelling for complex masterplans
One of the most significant challenges in modern planning is to deliver new urban development in a resource-effective and energy-efficient way. Considerable efforts have been made to develop energy-saving building materials and technologies, and rightly so. But is this enough?
I believe we can do more by controlling and reducing energy demand not only inside buildings but also between them. This means creating urban environments, as well as urban architecture, that reduce energy consumption. We can see this already happening, for example in forward-thinking governments placing greater emphasis on public transport over private.
There is though a further step that can be taken towards urban sustainability, which is to reduce large-scale, long-distance movement in cities and, in its place, promote local activity and shorter journeys. There are two parts to this. (more…)
-
Searching for a sustainable Britain
In searching for a sustainable Britain, we should not only be looking at what is built in Britain but also at what we, the British, export elsewhere. We need a sustainable British as well as a sustainable Britain. (more…)
-
The architecture of behaviour
I am delighted to have been invited to this important conference on Italian tourism, to share my experience as an architect, working on the design of tourist destinations in the United Kingdom and overseas. I hope to show how this experience might be relevant in planning and designing the relaunch of Italian tourism. (more…)
-
Divided we stand
The quality of advice provided by planners and architects is as much the product of our education, our professional bodies and our office environments as it is our individual talents. The deep structures of our universities, memberships and working cultures have a profound influence on our personal processes of reasoning and acting. We are what we are fed – in the classroom, at the conference and around the meeting table. And what could possibly be wrong with that? (more…)
-
Frayed at the edge (and at the centre)
At the edges of nearly all the world cities, and often at their centres too, are tracts of unplanned settlements. Labelled as slums, favelas and shanty towns, these are places that have been made largely without the intervention of planning. Their numbers are increasing as the planet moves from the field to the street and as urban populations reproduce. (more…)
-
Hedging on the pedestrian
February and March are traditionally the Spring conference season and have taken me this year on speaking engagements from Millbank (with RUDI) to Earls Court (with the Academy of Urbanism), the Royal College of Physicians (with the Architectural Review) and, ultimately, to the giant property toyshop of MIPIM in Cannes (with CABE). In more or less relaxed surroundings the pre-Spring period has been an opportunity to sit down with peers, discuss current practice and swap notes on future plans. First off the lips of those there was the global credit crisis, with opinions divided. On the one hand there was general concern over the detrimental effects of restricted borrowing on property development. On the other there were a significant number for whom the financial downturn presents opportunities to spend squirreled cash. (more…)
Tim Stonor 