City Structure

Urbanismus 4

30.10.2012

Ing. arch. Jana Zdráhalová, PhD.

Ústav urbanismu

Fakulta architektury

ČVUT

Attribution

Figures denoted by (1) are copied from The Social Logic of Space by Bill Hillier and Julienne Hanson, Cambridge University Press by kind permission of the publisher.

Figures denoted by (2) are copied from Space is the Machine by Bill Hillier, by kind permission of the author.

Space as social object

• Buildings and Power - 1993 - Thomas A. Marcus

• Art (École des Beaux Art)

x• Technical discipline (École Polytechnique)

• Buildings as “social objects”• New technology, materials

• Architect has the “freedom” to design the form• He gets “objective” functional requirements from investor

The Social Logic of Space

Bill Hillier, Julienne Hanson and colleagues at The Bartlett, University Colledge, London, 1984

Bill Hillier•Professor of Architectural and Urban Morphology in the University of London•Chairman of the Bartlett School of Graduate Studies•Director of the Space Syntax Laboratory in University College London

Space?

Spatial form – generation of encounters and controlDifferent types of society require different type of control on encounter?

Durkheim•organic solidarity - spatial

•mechanical solidarity – transpatial, ideological space

Elementary cell – inside/outside – inhabitant/strangerInside – more categories, control, well defined Outside – space into continuous system

Duality in the ways in which societies generate space – function of different forms of social solidarity

back

How to study space?

Social structure (abstract realm) - spatial structure (material realm)

Social logic of space - spatial logic of society

Society exist in space - spatial form

arranges people in space - aggregation, separation

arranges space - buildings, boundaries, paths, markers, …

Spatial order is one of the most striking means by which we recognise the existence of the cultural differences between one social formation and another

Moral science of design

Change of society – profound shift in spatial form – not a by-product, but intrinsic part of the change

Agricultural revolution – fixed settlements – urbanisation – early development of state – industrialisation – modern state

Moral science of design•Separation is good for the community•The hierarchisation is good for relations between groups•Space identified with a particular preferably small group, free of strangers

The logic of discrete systems

Arrangement of space - Aggregation of square cells•A dense and continuous aggregate of cells containing a number of void spaces “courtyards”•The global form has not been designed – it has arisen from an independent dynamics of a collection of individuals•Has a definite structure

•Space can work analogously as discrete system

Genotype, phenotype

All human social formations appear to exhibit duality of spatial (local group) and transpatial (category)

Example - member of a university

What kinds of restriction on randomness will generate the family of patterns that we actually find in human settlements forms?

Some examples

Vaucluse, Southern FranceDifferent size, heterogeneous, certain global regularity

(1)

Hamlet of Perrotet

(1)

Hamlet of Perrotet

The logic of space

Lacks the formal, geometric spatial order

Another, subtle, more intricate order

•Each building fronts directly onto the open structure•Open space structure – beads on a string – not a single open space•Open space – one major ring (the strongest global characteristic) and other sub-rings•Beady ring defined by inner clump of building and a set of outer clumps•Outer set of clumps – boundary of the settlement – finite•Ring structure and immediate adjacency of entrances – permeability and mutual accessibility•Genotype for hamlets in that region, particular hamlets - phenotypes

The logic of space

• How could such a genotype arise?• What restrictions?

It will work regardless on the shape of the initial object

(1)

Generative relation

• Symmetry/asymmetry• Distributed/nondistributed

(1)

The analysis of settlement layouts

Fundamental proposition of Syntax theory – is NOT that here is a relation between

settlement forms and social processes

but that there is a relation between the

generators of settlement forms and social forces

Smallest size settlementsBeady ring form, several small clumps rather than a single large clump

Larger and less defined spaces

Muker Middlesmoor(1) (1)

Middle sized settlementsBeady rings components coupled to a strong linear development away from the beady rings

Heptonstall Kirkoswald(1) (1)

Largest sized settlementsBeady ring property on a larger scale

An overall linear form, even when there is a substantial “ringy” development locally

GrassingtonHawes (1) (1)

The analysis of settlement layouts

Operational techniques – approach individuality

without sacrificing generality

The relations between the buildings by the way they are collected together create a system of open space – our experiments of the settlement

But it is continuous!

Arch. method - spaces and paths/streets and squares - which is which??

The question of representation of the open system of a settlement

Alpha-analysis model for syntactic representation, analysis and interpretation

The problem of the analysis is to describe in a structured and quantitative way how the village is constructed

Deformed grid

Beady ring system •Space widens to form irregular beads•Space narrows to form strings•Joins back to itself•Choice of routes from any space to any other space

The analysis of settlement layouts

The open space structure of G.

The small town of G. in the Var region of France

(1)

(1)

Axial map, convex map

Axial map – the least set of straight lines which pass through each convex space and makes all axial lines link

Convex map – the least set of convex spaces that covers the system

(1)

The analysis of settlement layouts

Axial map of G.

Convex map of G.

(1)

(1)

Integration

The way in which an axial line is connected to another or to all the other lines•Shallow/Deep•Distributed (rings)/Nondistributed

A space is said to be integrated, when all other spaces of the urban environment are relatively shallow from it.

•Global Integration - global measure, total depth „n“

Long journeys, cars•Local integration - which measures the accessibility three or more steps away based on research purpose “3”

Short joureys, pedestrians

Depth, justified graph

(1)

Connectivity, control

Connectivity

the measure of how well an axial line is intersected by other lines

Control value

how each axial line controls access to immediate neighbors (i.e., those lines intersected by the current one)

Both connectivity and control value are local measures since they only take into account relationships between a space and its immediate neighbors

Space syntax of Barnsbury

Barnsbury area, North London Axial map of Barnsbury(1) (1)

Integration/segregation of Barnsbury

Integration core of Barnsbury, numbered in order of integration values

Segregation map of Barnsbury(1) (1)

Social pathology and space

Plot of burglaries in Barnsbury

Huntingdon, Barnsbury

Thornhill Road, Barnsbury (2)

Children/adults use of space

A “ten minute” map picking numbers of children on a route with each dot representing one adult per ten minute period

A “ten minute” map picking numbers of adultson a route with each dot representing one adult per ten minute period

(2) (2)

Part and Wholes

City of London withinthe context of Great London

Scatter of the City of London within the structure of Great London

(2)

Scatter (in black dots) of Leadenhall Market within the context of the City of London (2)

Local area effect, Leadenhall Market

Leadenhall Market, City of London

Scales of movementCity - dense, but variable, encounter zones to become what made them useful: to be ‘mechanisms for generating contact’

space - multiplier effects on the relation between movement and encounter.

creating well-defined relationships between different levels of movement: •between the movement within buildings and the movement on the street•between localised movement in less important streets and between the more globalised pattern of movement •between the movement of inhabitants and the movement of strangers entering and leaving the city

King’s Cross, London

Global integration map of King’s Cross with three housing estates picked out in black (2)

Scatters of housing estatesEstates•Substantially more segregated that the rest of the urban surface

•Segregated as a lump

Good urban space has segregated lines, but they are close to integration lines, so that there is a good mix of integrated and segregated lines locally

•Poor relation between local and global integration /(structure)

•The scatter does not cross the line to create well structured local intensification (2)

Broken interfaces• Between buildings and pubic space• between localised and less localised movement• Between inhabitants and strangers

Life is possible in such place, but…

Spatial design – serious lacunas in natural movement

Than attract antisocial uses and behaviour

Marquess Road estate – 19. cent.

Sommerstown, London, 19. century

Interface map of 19. century (1)(1)

Marquess Road estate – 20. cent.

The interface map of Sommerstown now

Sommerstown, redeveloped in 20. century

(1)(1)

City is NOT a treeDensity, contiguity X Syntax of boundaries, spaces

ASSYMETRIC, NONDISTRIBUTED

Everyday life will exclude accidental contact with neighbourhoods

in the vicinity of their own dwellings

(1)

Intelligibility

Scatter intelligibility - connectivity/integration

Open space structure

Building structure

(2)

Intelligibility – three examples

Open space structuresScatter intelligibility - connectivity/integration

(2)

Intelligibility- design

Axial map - various designsScatter intelligibility - connectivity/integration

(2)

Summary

• New forms of spatial arrangement – no improvement, socially damaging

• Changes in the urban surface – motor car? – untenable• Technological, functional explenations – sociological!

Recent physical changes• Shift from a continuous system, everywhere ringy, open and

distributed street system to discontinuous, divided to number of relatively closed local domains

• Street/estate• Physical boundaries as the segregation medium• Open space as segregation medium

Means of separation in Holesovice

Physical boundaries as the segregation medium

Means of separation in Holesovice

Open space as segregation medium

Summary

Western and Eastern social system – common core

Industrial bureaucracies – increasing industrial production

Classes of non-productive workers– Organisation of production – Organisation of social reproduction

Fundamental inequality control of forms of production and social reproduction and those who do not have the control

Classes – different forms of solidarity (Durkheim)

State-sponsored apparatus of intervention in the social relations

eliminate the worst effects of this inequality by redistribution

Summary

Rupture existing social bonds

Western version – dynamic process – higher level of wealth•Improve technology•Intensify work

When growth slows down…

Conflict between the needs of the productive sector and reproductive sector – spatial dialectics of Western society

SummaryMoral science of design•Separation is good for the community•The hierarchisation is good for relations between groups•Space identified with a particular preferably small group, free of strangers

Society democratically deployed in space

•On the basis of of large not small communities•Dense not sparse local encounter spaces•Above all on the basis of an urban surface locally and globally open, distributed, and unhierarchical