SPACE AND SOCIETYThe Role of Configurational Analyses for Planning and Design of

Public Spaces

Maria Rosália Guerreiro

Department of Architecture and Urbanism & CIES-IUL

ISCTE – IUL

rosalia.guerreiro@iscte.pt

“It is difficult to design a space that will not attract people. What is remarkable is how often this has been accomplished”WILLIAM WHYTE

• My question is: Why?

• There has always been a tension between those who study the city and those who practice its planning and design. This has led to a divorce between theory and practice. But, each time the complexity of the urban problems are bigger. And they cannot be solved by intuitive methods.

• The difficulty of understanding the urban space is because the city encompasses the interaction of spatial, economic, social, cultural and cognitive. And in the past, no planning model existed to integrate these complex interactions.

• Cities are complex systems and consequently they cannot be entirelypredictable: “A complex system is one in which elements interact and affecteach other so that it is difficult to separate the behaviour of individual elements.” (Gershenson, 2008).

• However cities are not completely preditable, they are not totally unpredictable too. They are as much about rational top-down design (IMPOSED ORDER) as about self-organization (EMERGENT ORDER).

• In history, planning has been much more interested in rational design. I believe that the study of self-organization can help to design good urban spaces.

“It is difficult to design a space that will not attract people. What is remarkable is how often this has been accomplished”WILLIAM WHYTE

• My question is: Why?

What is order?The image represents two kinds of order:planned or imposed by a mental processand emergent or self-organized in aspontaneous process.

At the top, the order imposed by aspectacle where people and chairs areorganized according to the repetition ofregular parts with the same intervals –thewhole is the sum of its parts - it is a top-down, imposed and simple order.

At the bottom, we see a new kind of ordercreated by the relation between people –the whole is more than the sum of itsparts – It is a bottom-up, emergent, andcomplex order.

C. Doxiadis, Ekistics, 1968

• The whole is greater than the sum of its parts: The way that parts are put together to form the whole is more important than any other parts taken in isolation

• The unique characteristics of the individual are irrelevant to the character of the whole

Wholeness – relationships vs objects

C. Alexander, The nature of the order, 2003

C. Doxiadis, Ekistics, 1968

Ubiquity

If people think and plants don´t, why social flows and natural flows have the same pattern?

Self-similarity or scale free

• In the last decades a serie of theories as emerged to study this kind of order. Ithas been called a new science paradigm because it doesn´t separate to understand

• Complexity theory approaches the problem from many different points ofview. It is an umbrella over many disciplines which make them dialogue (in special the social and the natural sciences)

• CTC – Complexity Theories of Cities: Space syntax, Cellular automata, Network theories, Fractal cities, Synergetics, Biomimecry, etc.

complexity theory

SPATIAL PATTERNS

SOCIAL LIFE

SPATIAL LIVE

SPACE SYNTAX is about the relationship beetwen space and society. It is “the social content of spatial patterns and the spatial content of social patterns”

Advocated by Bill Hillier and Julliene Hanson from the 70s, is now a consistent theory that provides clear evidence of how humans perceive and use the urban environment. Consequently, it allows us to qualify and quantify how architecture affects people's lives.

The method consists on identifying patterns of spatial relationships which drive the co-presence and movement of persons. These patterns are then translated by a quantitative and mathematical manner which represents a virtual community.

William Whyte (1917 – 1999)

BACKGROUND theory of space syntax

• Praça Paiva Couceiro, Lisbon

• An hub in the city network

• SHARED SPACE - pedestrian and car are not incompatible

• Plaza Paiva Couceiro is an island between four lanes, but the pedestrian and the car are very well synchronized through the crosswalks (despite it could be better)

after2010

before2010

• Visual graphic analyses – it established the relationship of visibility between each point, to every other points in the system

• Colors show quantities, from the highest (red) to the lowest (blue)

• The amount of visibility (isovist) matters for the use of public spaces

• “the street corners are great public spaces” (William Whyte, 1980). They havebigger isovists

• On the contray, “a space that cannot be seen is not used”

• Good visibility is also important for the use and acess to the plaza

• Step depth– the shortest path

before 2010 after 2010

Jaywalking Patterns

Jaywalking Patterns

Jaywalking Patterns

Jaywalking Patterns

Jaywalking Patterns

Jaywalking Patterns

after2010

before2010

“Seeing – a matter of distance”GEHL (1987)

The social field of vision –0 a 100 metros

30 meters –physical perception

< 25 metros – spiritual perception

Plaza = 20 x 50 meters

Visual integration

after 2010before 2010

antes 2010 depois 2010

visual coefficient of clustering

visual coefficient of clustering

Before 2010 After 2010

Self-congestion

antes 2010 depois 2010

visual coeficient of clustering

Visual control

antes 2010 depois 2010

Visual controlability

antes 2010 depois 2010

Visual control and controlability“the main activity in public spaces is look at other people” (W. Whyte)

Shade, places to seat, water, food

Main activity – playing cards

visibility

Isovists by André Faria | André Rocha | Carolina Medeiros | Laura Teixeira | Naiara Rosa

isovists

ENVIRONMENTAL DETERMINISM?

(…)

Laws from the space to society&Laws from society to the space

Bill Hillier “The Architecture of the Urban Object”, 1989