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Space Syntax: A Method For Describing and Analyzing The Relationships Between Spaces of Urban Areas and Buildings

Space Syntax is a method for analyzing the relationships between spaces in buildings and urban areas. It represents spaces as nodes in a graph and connections as links based on permeability. Key measures include connectivity, integration, control value, and global choice to understand how spaces relate and which are most central. The method abstracts real spaces into topological representations to capture sociologically relevant patterns at that level.

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673 views15 pages

Space Syntax: A Method For Describing and Analyzing The Relationships Between Spaces of Urban Areas and Buildings

Space Syntax is a method for analyzing the relationships between spaces in buildings and urban areas. It represents spaces as nodes in a graph and connections as links based on permeability. Key measures include connectivity, integration, control value, and global choice to understand how spaces relate and which are most central. The method abstracts real spaces into topological representations to capture sociologically relevant patterns at that level.

Uploaded by

ferdi
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
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Download as PPT, PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd
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Space Syntax

A method for describing and analyzing the


relationships between spaces of urban areas
and buildings.
Object of analysis
Configured space, voids between walls,
fences, ...
 Building floorplans - rooms
 Plans of urban fabric – streets, squares, fields
Method
 Redescribed in an abstracted format - Graph
 Focuses on its topology
 Sociologically relevant aspects can be captured
at the topological level
Creating a graph
Concepts
 Graph
 Spaces are represented by dots Nodes
 Relationships of premeability by lines Links
 Syntactic step – direct connection between
spaces
 Depth between two spaces – least number of
syntactic steps needed to reach one from the
other
 Justified graph – restructured so that a specific
space is placed at the bottom The root space
What is a space?
 Convex space is a space where no line bet-
ween any two of its points crosses the perime-
ter. A concave space has to be divided into the
least possible number of convex spaces.
 Axial space or an axial line is a straight line
(“sight line”), possible to follow on foot.
 Isovist space is the total area that can be
viewed from a point.
Convex space
Axial Space
Isovist Space
Syntactic Measures
Syntactic Measures that can be calculated from
Space Syntax Graphs
 Connectivity
 Integration
 Control value
 Global choice
Connectivity
 Measures the number of immediate neighbors
that are directly connected to a space.
Integration
 Measures the average depth of a space to all
other spaces in the system.
Control Value
 The degree to which a space controls access to
its immediate neighbors
 Takes into account the number of alternative
connections that each of these neighbors has
Global Choice
 Measure of flow through a space
 A space has a strong choice value when many
of the shortest paths, connecting all spaces to
all spaces of a system, pass through it
Using the measures
 The spaces of a layout can be ranked
according to each of these measures .
 Mapping the rank order back onto the syntactic
map gives a picture of syntactic structure.
 Core set is the most integrating or controlling
spaces of a system. Integration core is the 10%
most integrated spaces.

Encounter rate is a measure of use density, i.e.
pedestrian flow. Correlates to integration
measure.

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