Syntax as an iterative architectural design tool: a teaching experiment using spatial syntactic and isovist analysis
Anklesaria, Freyaan and McElhinney, Sam (2022) Syntax as an iterative architectural design tool: a teaching experiment using spatial syntactic and isovist analysis. In: Proceedings, 13th International Space Syntax Symposium. Western Norway University of Applied Sciences, Bergen. ISBN 9788293677673
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While space syntax has developed significant explanatory capabilities in the realm of the space- society relationship, its direct applicability within design is relatively nascent. Cases of application at the building scale are comparatively few. In our paper we describe one such instance, an undergraduate architectural design studio at CEPT University in India, which explored the application of scientific methods within creative and speculative design processes. This paper describes the design methods developed through this studio. The process was semi structured, adjusting as the course progressed, in order to incorporate emerging methods.
We propose that analytic tools which provide the precision and accuracy required by researchers are less conducive to the iterative process of design; instead, the capability to test out design ideas roughly but quickly serves the design process better. In this studio course we introduced the theories and methods of space syntax alongside two software tools that enabled both such approaches; DepthmapX, and the isovists.org app. The forms of analysis used in the studio included convex permeability maps, their justified graphs and network centralities; point and path isovists’ local metrics; visibility graph analysis for global measures of visibility. The briefed aim of the studio was to use such tools as an approach to the design of a school building.
We find that successful processes emerged when students used the tools in a rapid yet rigorous iterative process of testing, modifying and re-testing. For most part, contrary to a generative design process, the designer’s intuitions and subjective speculations actively interacted with the objective analysis to arrive at design decisions. Finally, we describe the pedagogical influence of introducing objective methods in a design studio which is conventionally a space of creative or subjective processes.
Proceedings of the 13th international Space Syntax Symposium, Bergen, 20-24 June 2022.
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