017 Spatial Syntax Part 06 - 6x6 Grid Form

Interested in how the configurational properties of integration is affected by closing and opening the central section of the partitions. By taking a 6x6 grid form, with the calculation of depth values, within each cell. It seems that corner cells have more depth, center edges are less which then gets less towards the center. 

If we eliminated the boundary of the shape, then the Total Depth for all cells would be the same, since starting from each and counting outwards until we have covered all cells. This means by implying that the central value is 0, the rest would correlate outwards in the small cell calculation and steps used for each individual. By demostrating this strategy, this imposes the difference between cell relations. By excluding the external boundary, this outside region would be treated as an element in the system. The new calculations would indicate the simple difference. 

If internal barring was to be placed, this would increase the Total Depth for some cells, depending on the layout. It will have the effect of making certain trips from cell to cell longer. The extra depth created by bars will vary with the location of the bar in relation to the boundary. For example, by taking the 6x6 shape, the Total Depth is calculated as 5040, however by introducing the partition in the leftnest horizontal location, the Total Depth equals to 5060, an additional 20 steps of depth difference. 

Hows does this happen? All the ‘Depth Gain’ in the 6x6 shape is on the line in which the bar is located. Depth Gain happens when a shortest route from one cell to another requires a de-tour to an adjacent line. By changing the bar at different point on the line changes the pattern of Depth Gain for the cells along the line. It seems that the Depth Gain values of individual cells will become more similar to each other as the bar moves from the edge to the center. The bar follows to the edge, the Depth Gain will be maximized. Therefore with a central location maximizes Depth Gain but minimizes differences in a highly significant property. 

Elementary objects as configurational strategies: 

The understanding of opening and closing partitions governs specific types of spatial moves, such as corridors, courts or wells. Wells are zones within a complex which are inaccessible from the complex and therefore not part of the spatial structure of complex.  This block is an arrangement of bars in a way to form a complete enclosure, so that in a 6x6 cube, one or more selected cells is completely separated from the rest of the spatial syste,. Therefore, this is seen as the elimination of cells from the spatial system. 

Here are two possible cases:

Here shows four possible location using two possible shapes with a use of four cells.

1. The 2x2 block has much less Depth Gain in the center location than periphiral locations. The Depth Gain effects from changes of shape are much greater than it’s location change. The compact 2x2 has much less Depth Gain than the linear 4x1 forms and the linear forms have Depth Gain in central location than periphiral location. We may note that the Depth Gain effects from changes of shape are much greater than those from changed of location. 

It is clear that in this way, we can calculate the Depth Gain effects of any internal block of any shape.

2. Another important integer is when the block is placed at the edge of the complex. The reason for this being important cause these blocks are not seen as well no more but changes in the shape of the envelope in the complex. It is clear that we can treat changes in the external envelope of the complex in the exact way as interior 'holes'.

We can know reverse this closed block theory, by replacing a closed well, with courts and corridors. This will start to collect cells and merge them together to create one big open cell. Longer open space's in the complex are created by eliminating the two third partitions and in effect turning the neighbouring spaces into a single space. 

These figures here is the translation of the figures above. The blocks shown have been substituted into open space. Here the values have been concentrated on the depth loss. The depth loss for the longer space is calculated by substituting the new value with values in the original form and adding them together. The value inside the new shape is always a content no matter its location. 

By observing these figures, it is seen that a centrally placed open square is more integrating i.e. has less total depth in itself than a peripherally placed and that a linear form will be more integrating than a compact form. These effect are exactly the inverse of the first figures of the based block diagrams.

In the final two figures, the open cell spaces are as two two-cell spaces rather than a single four cell space. This shows that contiguously joined spaces will always create more integration than a comparable number of discrete spaces. Therefore more combined space, more the floor will be integrated. 

.More centrally for longer space, more integration

.More extended lines for longer spaces, more integration

.More continuity of larger spaces, more integration

.More linearity of longer spaces, more integrtion

018 Spatial Syntax Part 05 - Shapes as Configurations

Different arrangements of the same number of elements will have different configurational properties.

Here are a set of arrangements of the same eight square cell.

Shapes as configuration in effect we are treating a shape as a graph, which is a relation complex that temporarly ignors other attributes of the elements and their relation.
A configurational discription is not to understand it's shape and its properties, but to give insight into properties of spatial and formal shapes which manifest themselves as the most fundamental. This property of spatial shape are significantly different when seen from different points of views within the graph. This can be demonstrated using the j'graphs on the earlier shape configurations.

By drawing j-graphs of all nodes in a shape, then, we can picture some deep properties of a shape. A highly interesting property of shapes is the number of different j-graphs they have, and how strong the differences are.
For example, showing all the possible j-graphs in these two selected shape configurations. The number varies from 3 to 6. The reason for less numbers of j-graphs in the first diagram is that if the two nodes have identical depth numbers, this means that from these two points of views, the shape has a structural identity, which can be identified as symmetry. Therefore, the less number of different j-graphs means more of the shapes appear regular beacause there ae more symmetries in the shape.
The aspect of the structure of these graphs thus seems to reflect our sense that shapes can be regular or irregular to different degrees.

The j-graph allows us to look at symmetry as an internal property.

017 - Self Evaluation of Rationalist Traces

What is the unit about?

To me the unit expresses a rational exposure of strictly pragmatic rules depending on what context it is aimed at, i.e rural, urban, site.. By Initiating these rules, we can then compose a series of outcomes and variations depending on the concentration.

Why the Castle study & what did we discover?

To gauge our minds into a world of rationality.. the reason for this focus was to analyse a good example of a rationalist space.  Concentrating on this certain typology would raise factors that would have needed to be discussed, i.e thickness and usage of the stone walls. 

the essence of the building started to diverge into a much residential environment, while still retaining the natural skin of the building.

The beauty about this is that, all the recessed punctures i.e. fireplaces, windows, gun holes are still expressed within the skin, composing a very atmospheric lighting experience.

During the analysis of drawing and mapping out the building, I mainly discovered on how the tower house itself has a clear rational programmatic structure to it, which related to the research that I undertook at the time. The programmatic structure had a basic form of strict vertical movement through the stairwells, which lead to different levels, i.e. freedoms of the building.  These were located opposite to each other however only communicated with one another within a primary central space, i.e. the great halls. Having these strict movements created a good defence technique. This was done by having the stairwells rotating in various directions, which confused the outsider in it’s orientation.

The rationality of composing these plaster casts was to undertake the complexity of the spaces within the tower house. To expose it’s dynamics on how, back then, they strictly planned out where each puncture of storage, fireplace and window would be positioned within each room. 

Can you then rationalise by saying that each room had a set of rules and were composed as a set of modules?

Primary space:      Great hall    Fireplace

                                     Window

                                     Door

Secondary space:    Rooms            Fireplace

                                     Window

                                     Storage

Why the nolli study?
Firstly, there is a connection between the Tower Houses and the Nolli. The connection being the analysis of internal space and the confliction between public and private spaces.

What is private and what is public? Could we then reflect back and analyse this in the Tower House to fully concrete this connection? This again connects to my individual research by analysis the programmatic innovation of the Tower House, which would fully expose its depth on how public and private spaces connect with one another.

The reason for this study is to fully concentrate on what can be associated as public and private at a greater scale. By taking a part of Edinburgh’s city block, we could undertake a full analysis on how this block operates within it’s context and then apply certain rules to define the public/private relations within each individual outlet.

By exposing this analogy, we would then have a clear understanding on defining public/private spaces within a set of rules given for that block. This would then be cast as a model to expose its complexity.

Seeing how this block has much to consider and various rules to be applied, do we then consider the notion of time?? How each internal space operates within 24 hours. Obviously the result being that the public internal spaces, i.e retails, would then compose itself as private.

By casting various models, within a course of time, would compose a set of discussions and comparisons to up-bring further complexities.

Processes….
Drawing, measuring & sketching spaces that we (the public) can access to draw an appropriate nolli & make a plaster cast.


Making assumptions about….
Accessibility (public/private)

How far can the post man go?

‘Do not enter’ &’ Keep of the grass’

Residential courtyards, small gardens, a church within a convent & large open spaces like the convent garden

Boundaries & thresholds

Time..24 hour basis.

Manifesting a set of rules applied on public/private.

016 - Design Review

Main Points to discuss:

Program:

. program first starting point --> reference to OMA

. program can be seen as an active factor

Plan - Section:

. plan as the horizontal expression of a vertical intension. Its all about the horizontal movement.

. section it presents external physical and constructional issues. The section is more real. It involves a tri - part arrangement. 

The Typical Plan:

. typical plan is known to be " a plan without qualities"

. a plan that repeats itself.

. a plan with depth and closure

. a plan that can be seen as bad.

. its purpose is to populate and office.

. it takes no demands.

. by the sixties, it was refined as a science of co-ordination of columns grids, facade modules, ceiling tiles, lighting fixtures, partitions.

. the plan itself is formed up of 4 components: floors, cores, the perimeter, columns. 

A Office for a Metropolitan Architecture:

. A vision fueled by the formal and social multiplicities of urban life. 

. OMA have been termed as "the social condensers of our time"

. the work of Koolhaas is strongly ordered by trajectories of movement through building. 

. mainly focused on vertical movement, i.e stairs, ramps and lifts. This becomes modes of access to fields of encounters of "event-fields". He realizes as a multiple of freedoms.

. he seeks an architecture that encourages an irruption of events and encounters. 

. he concentrates on setting up a spatial structure that creates a multiplicity of choice for individuals and encounters. 

. Koolhaas often design's interiors as if they were exteriors, i.e. The Educatorium. 

. Koolhaas's works enables patterns of free play with spatial order. His work consists off the relationship between the randomness and freedom and the presence of same form. 

. it shifts from a focus of an architectural object to a focus on field relation.

. the idea of a building as a field that an object entails a shift in critique from form to spatial analysis. 

Spatial Syntax:

. Tool that is use to extract deep social structure of a space. 

. explain he method on how the structure can be extracted. 

. configuration and integration analysis

. total depth and reasoning

. considering the possibilities of core wells and courtyard internal spaces. Their effects. 

Art and Media Tech Analysis:

. further plan on where to take this on board. 

. analysis of this by constructing a private and public route.

. extract its structures with the use of syntax innovation.

. compose its internal space, plaster models. 

. compare and contrast the outcomes. 

These points were my main focused that I personally wanted to discuss within the review. Most of them were raised and managed to receive constructive feedback on where I should be heading with this. Here below is a Jpeg example of my presentation that I displayed on the day. As you can see every point that was raised and refined were converted into a diagram. This was my initial intent. On the other side is a strip column of text about each individual step within my research. Most of this was converted into a book. This could be a start for my own thesis.

Thoughts and indications of progress:

. can't you design instinctively rather than method?
. interesting comparisons between the well cores and the court analogy
. no scale and no function - how abstract can you go?
. make generic floors unique?
. should tertiary be in the walls? .. but then a core is tertiary
. could you compare space syntax method and intuitive method?  
. King's Cross Masterplan scheme
. look at consultation and follow ups. 
. be careful if you can use it as a design method. 
. chances are it will go wrong, but in not being successful, it will b interesting. you can then reflect and analyze. 
. get under the skin to fully understand connective and how it actually works. 
. use this to post-rationalize.
. fine something you can test it with, design?
. look at the mediateque. 

015 Machine as Heart: The House of Floirac

The house was completed in 1998 on a hill top outside Bordeoux in nothern of France.

Koolhaas suggests that it is not a house for an "invalid" but an architecture that denies "invalidity". The House is organised with a total of four vertical movement systems connecting three formally distinct floors.

0

Heavy Mass - Kitchen.

The base level in on entry courtyard with car access, framed by the house. The house is excavated from the hillside and likened by Koolhaas to a "sequence of caves" or "cellar" having the entry, kitchen, wine cellar and the television room. 

Highly Transparent.

The level is transparent, glass enclosed slice of living/dining and gallery/study areas structured into one large field of visual and functional encounters.

Heavy Mass - Sleeping.

The bedroom accomodating is enclosed in a horizontal slab pierced with hole sized windows, and disigned to appear as if suspended above the transparent living zone. 

The four vertical movement systems are three stairways and an open elevator.

A platform "the elevator" (3x3.5m) rises and decends on hydralic columns to align with each of the three floors. The platform has no walls or ballustrades, it becomes a part of each room it allign with, "The movement of the elevator changed, each time, the architecture of the house. A machine was its heart"

The four vertical movement system generates a highly connected spatial structure for the lower floors.

1. Mother's Stair

2. Guest's Stair

3. Children Stair

4. Father's Elevator

Father elevator - 

This is the "heart" of the house, where it transforms the architecture. The father controls the architecture and the position of the elevator becomes a signifir of his presence and obsence. The void is created. The central living space of the house is secure only when the father is present. 

The adult bedroom is structured in a loop with two bedrooms at once separated and connected by a bathroom and a balcony. 

The children bedroom form a mere traditional tree-like syntax which is in accessible to the father. Surveillance over children is the only function not applied to the father. 

The house is known as an innovative and imaginative house, have both formally and spatially. It combines a rethinking of the dialectic of inside/outside - as in Mies' Formsworth house, and vertical/horizontal - as in Le Corbusier's Villa Savoye, but with greater programmatic dynamism and complexity, as in the Rietveld Schroder House. 

This social structure of the house is highly ringy on the lower levels, it is also conceptually tree-like with the elevator as its stem. It embodies new form of both liberation and social control. The structure of the house remains heirachical. 

Is this new spatial hierachy an accidental by product of Koolhaas obssetion with the elevator?

Koolhaas treats interiors space as fields of play that resists any relationship with social structuring, and a permeable spatial network is a primary design tactic. He wants to defy the social logic of space to free up the pragrammatic imperatives, that lock up architecture into the service of a highly ritualistic reproduction of social life. 

Kipnis suggests that:

"for Koolhaas, architecture is able...to engender provisional freedoms in a difinite situation, freedoms as the experiences, as the sensations and otherwise of undermiming select patterns of regulation and authority"

Koolhaas does indeedchallenge the primary genotypes of sociospatial reproduction, yet at the same time he generates illusions of an architecture that has been freed from spatial ideology. These illutions can be a cover of new practices of power or for more of the sane.

014 The Educatorium At Utrecht

The university was completed in 1997. It holds a cafeteria, two large lecture theaters and a cluster of examination rooms. 

It was recognised as a "rendezvous and exchange point, creating a new center of gravity" where it was conveiced on the hub of a campus serving fourteen facilities and research facilities. This was to embrace the university experience with the social encounters of the cafeteria space, the leaving and exchange in the auditoria/classrooms and the individual rights of passage played out in the examination hall. 

The building conceives of attempts in generating forms of social encounters. 

It seeks potential of overlapping between individual programs and encouraging exchange between users of its diverse functions, while allowing a pragmatic use of individual space.

"Synthetic Landscape" a metaphor that OMA uses to describe the characteristics bluring of inside and outside. THe main entrance is seen as a tilted ground plane and urban plaza that then continues as an interior sloping 'field' which the two auditoria are placed like figures in the landscape.

"Social magic carpet" a metaphor that is used to describe the roof of the building. The rising floorplate, which folds upwards and back becomes the wall and the roof of the building. This creates an urban landscape of play and social encounters inparted into the architecture. The ampitheater and the examination rooms are described as interiors set into the landscape due to the folding floor.

The spatial structure is designed to mainly act as a netwrok in where individuals, i.e students, are free to discover their own shortcuts and to mavigate through the builging. The design of the building is to seek a synthetic landscape where it opens to individual choice. 

By reffering to the diagram, it is seen that the building for its size and complexity, it s a very shallow structure, i.e. all major spaces and accessed within six levels of depth. The building has three functional "attractors"; the auditoria, the examination room and the cafeterial - each of which is coupled with a major social circulation space. 

The four major foyers form a series from the ramped plaza on the exterior to the main foyer, which leads upwards to the foyer and then back to a balcony foyer outside the examination room. The main foyer also operates as a control space through which all of the open circulation systems within the building pass.

The educatorium is described as a "factory of learning". While knowledge is produced in the research centers, fragments of this knowledge are revealed in the spetacle of the lecture theaters, discussed in foyers and cafeteria spaces and exammed in enclosed rooms. The spatial diagram illustrates the depth of the location in these sources. The knowledge that is brought into the light or the social space is located on the shallow term of the diagram. The deeper the spatial structure gets, the more private/enclosed the social encounters become i.e. examination rooms. The spaces where students perform are found deep within the 'hub'. 

The Educatorium becomes partially reserved. 

The examination zone is five to six levels deep within the building; here it does not receive the level of architecture that is featured in the shallow zones. Here the field of play stops and work begins. Although all examination rooms have multiple points of entry, they are each end points to spatial movement. 

One can read the Educatorium as a radically inovative building at its shallow levels with a conservating depth. All the socialization, contact and the sharing of ideas all take place in the shallow network. This implies in the legitination of institutional being located in the deepness of spatial structure.

The two key metaphors of "synthetic landscape" and "factory of learning" reflect the ways that the field relations of the landscape have been imported into the factory to urbanise the building. 

Throughout this, Koolhaas's work enbodies a dialectic between the freen and the tree like institution structure.

The circulation system in this building is in many ways a masterful piece of design, but it achieves by integrating such programmatic innovation with entrenched spatial genotypes.

013 Spatial Syntax Part 04 - Total Depth

Configurational Formalism - The most powerful in detecting formal and functional regularities in real systems. 

The main reasons:

1. The problem of understanding the simultaneous effects of a whole complex of entities on each other through their pattern of relationships, (configuration). This is why formalism often seem to offer mathematical sophistication out of proportion to the empirical results achieved. 

With configurational analysis, it leads to a disproportionate success in finding significant formal and form-functional regularities. 

2. The representation of the spatial or formal systems that is to be analyzed as to the method of quantification. By doing this we conclude with trying to represent space in terms of the type of function we are interested in. 'j-graphs' creating formally or functional thoughts of informative results. 

3. The graphic representation of the results of mathematical analysis. Creating a graphical representation rather than a mathematical understanding. By representing mathematical results graphically, a level of communication is possible that permits large numbers if people to be interested and knowledgeable who would otherwise fall at the first fence of mathematical analysis. 

The 'Space Syntax' itself has been researched at UCL University. It has been drive by a remark of Lionel March's: 'The only thing you can apply is good theory'.

The techniques of spatial representation and quantification proposed here are essentially survivors of an intensive program of empirical investigation. 

Defining Configuration *relating back to Part 3

1. Simple relation was defined as a relation between any pair of elements in a complex.

2. Configurational relation defined as a relation insofar as it is affected by the simultaneous co-presence of at least a third element, and possibly all other elements in a complex. 

In figure one, a and b are two cubes standing on a surface. The relation of a and b is symmetrical in that a being the neighbor of b implies that b is the neighbor of a. 

In figure two, a and b are brought together, which again is a symmetrical relation. These two conclude to have a neighbor relation. 

However, figure three, does not. The conjoint object formed by a and b in figure one and two is taken and rested on one of its ends, without changing the relation of a and b. B not appears to be above a, and the relation of being above is not symmetrical but asymmetrical, i.e. b being above a implies that a is not above b. 

The surface is introduced as a new relation to these three figures, known as c. In figure one and two, the surface to which the cubes are standing on, say the surface of the earth, have a symmetrical relation as to each other. Therefore we can say that a and b are symmetrical with the respect to c. 

This is a configurational statement, since it describes a relation of at least a third. 

Observing figure three, a and b are asymmetrical with the respect to c. 

This is a configurational difference due to figure 1-2 and 3 being totally different, i.e. symmetrical/asymmetrical. 

The relation of a and b to each other is changed if we add the 'with the respect to' clause which embed the two cubes in a larger complex which includes c. 

The situation clarified by the justified graphs 

j-graph:

Nodes are aligned above a root according to their depth from the root of the configurations shown above. The bottom node is the earth itself, with a cross indicating that is the root. In the first two figures, a and b are each independently connected as neighbors to the earth. In figure three, the relation between b and c is broken creating a 'two deep' relation. 

The numbers that are attached to each node in the j-graphs, indicate the sum of 'depth'. This is a total of sum from node to another node in the system. 

TD also known as Total Depth, is the total sum of all the nodes. The distribution of TD and their overall sum describes at least some configurational characteristics of these composite objects. (less amount of TD, more integrated the system is)

These figures here take this notion of TD into a complex stage. They are all composed of seven identically related cells plus an eighth one which is joined to the original block of seven initially at the top end in the leftmost figure, then progressively more centrally from left to right. 

The two principal effects from changing the position of this single element:

1. The total depth values and their distribution all change. 

2. The sum total depth for each figure change, reducing from left to right as the eighth element moves to a more central location. 

As you can see, the least amount of depth is in the fourth figure, making this system a much more integrated scheme. 

The two key principals of configurational analysis: 

1. Changing one element in a configuration can change the configurational properties of many others.

2. The overall characteristics of a complex can be changed by changing a single element, that is, changes do not somehow cancel out their relations to different elements and leave the overall properties invariant. Virtually any change will alter the overall properties of the configuration. 

012 Spatial Syntax Part 03 - Configuration

Syntax Analysis - used to clarify the depth of all spaces in a pattern from a particular point. 

The word configuration is applied to the analysis. Its a concept addressed to the whole complex. If we define spatial relations as existing when there is any type of link between two spaces, then configuration exists when relation between two spaces are changed according to how we relate one or other or both to at least another space. 

Configuration is a set of interdependent relations in which each is determined by its relation to all the others. 

First figure, explains a simple j graph that is composed of "ring" network combination. It is clear here that the relation is formally "symmetrical" in the sense that a is to cell b as b is to a. This symmetry is clearly an objective property of the relation of a and b and does not depend on how we choose to see the relation. 
This is seen as a configurational statement. 

Considering the second figure, linear combination, where only a is directly permeable to c. This means to get to b, we must pass through a to get to b from c, the relation becomes asymmetrical. 
This is seen as a configurational difference. 
Where a, separates b and c making a the difference. This gives a, an importance to its field.

Lets try to detect the presence of cultural and social ideas in the spatial forms of buildings. These here are the ground floor plans of three French houses, with their j graphs drawn initially from the outside and to the right  is three further j graphs justified from three different internal spaces. 
Looking at the j graphs drawn, we can see that in spite of their geometrical differences of each house, there is one strong similarity in the configuration. 
The Salle Commune lies on all non trivial rings (a trivial ring is one which links the same part of spaces twice)links directly to an exterior space- that is - it is a depth one in the complex - and acts as a link between the living spaces and various spaces associated with domestic work carried out by women. 
The configuration of this space is seen as the leas depth throughout the analysis, than any other space. The general form of this measure is called integration. The less depth from the complex as a whole, the more integrating the space is. Therefore, every space in these three complexes can be assigned an 'integration value'. 

We can know ask how the different functions in the house are 'spatialized'. By observing these diagrams, we find that it is very common that different functions are spatialized in different ways. and that this can often be exposed clearly through its 'integration analysis'. 
In the three French houses, for example, we find that there is a certain order of integration among the spaces where different functions are carried out. If all the functions of the three houses are set out in order of the integration values of the spaces in which they occur, beginning with the most integrated space, we can read this as the salle commune being the most integrated that the corridor, which is more integrated that the exterior, and so on. 
To the extent that there are commonalities in the sequence of inequalities, then we can say that there us a common pattern to the way in which different functions are spatialized in the house. Common patterns called 'inequality genotypes'. T this is because they refer to deep structures underlying spatial configuration and their relation to living patterns. 

The relation of visibility, which passes through space:
This is done by drawing up the center points of each wall within a room and thus covering half of the space in the room. The idea of this diamond shape is that the space use is normally concentrated within the diamond shape, the corners commonly being reserved for objects. 
The reason in doing this is that it becomes another basis for quantitative and statistical analysis. The diagram shows that the salla commune has a far more powerful visual field than the salle itself. This type of method allows us to retrieve from house plans configurational properties that relate to the social and culturally functioning of the house. through this spatial configuration are embedded in the material and spatial 'objectivity' of building. Good way to express its concept and its architectural response. 

"We think of 'buildings' as whole entities through the unconscious intermediary of configuration, in that when we think of a particular kind of building, we are conscious not only of an imagine of an object, but at the same time of the complex of spatial relations that such a building entails"