The Role of Spatial Networks in the Historic Urban Landscape: Learning from Venice in the Fifteenth and Sixteenth Centuries

The 2011 Historic Urban Landscape Recommendation (HUL) by UNESCO defines cities as dynamic environments subject to cultural processes, tangible/intangible heritage and community values, leaving some key questions open. Is the heritage sector better defining historic places, or because their complexity defies verbal description, it re-iterates simplified concepts? Are existing boundaries between disciplines such as architecture, planning and landscape design enriching or constraining heritage? This paper analyses the urban morphology of Venice and the Piazza San Marco, a key context in which architecture emerges as legitimised vehicle for urban regeneration in early modernity. Looking at the relationship between the Piazza and the urban networks of Venice alongside intangible spatial practices and symbols, the paper makes three contributions to urban conservation: a) it defines the HUL as the interrelationship of the anonymous city with the authored products of design, b) it revisits the foundations of early modern consciousness about architecture, urban conservation and innovation in order to better understand interdisciplinary knowledge in the heritage sector and c) it approaches heritage as social construction, involving the selection of structures, from buildings to entire areas, and from legal documents and political instruments to ideologies through which societies are seen from dominant positions, often disguising conflict

Beyond analytical knowledge: The need for a combined theory of generation and explanation

Analytic approaches to design develop theories from real-world phenomena, and as such are predominantly focused on the ‘laws that restrict and structure the field of possibility’ (Hillier 1996: 221). However, in the domain of design we need theories of design possibility and actuality, or a combined theory of generation and explanation. Starting from the assertion that there are multiple branches of architectural knowledge, this paper discusses three artefacts (Venice, Le Corbusier’s Venice Hospital and Calvino’s Invisible Cities) suggesting that in these artefacts we recognise common morphogenetic characteristics, and the intersection of analytic thought with generative design. The aim is threefold: firstly, to explore the ways in which the common characteristics in the three works create syntaxes of combinations capable of describing the generative imagination as the outcome of definable processes and relations; secondly, to explain the importance of a theory in dynamic processes of interaction and association aside to static spatial structures. Thirdly, to show where we can situate these ideas in relation to intellectual and design practices, and how to project them in the future. It is proposed that the diversification of knowledge is the basic condition for the intersection of generative with analytical thought and the dynamic generation of meaning. The paper borrows from aesthetic and literary theory the notion of ‘possible worlds’ to take into account design as ‘worldmaking’ (Goodman 1978). It argues that analytic and generative knowledge are central in design, as each allows access to worlds whose centres of reality are not separate or fixed but interact and shift dynamically with creative activity and time. Aside to theories of explanation we need theories of generation or a combined theory of freedom and necessity in architecture and design

Space and Planned Informality: strong and weak programme categorisation in public learning environments

Public educational buildings – such as schools, libraries, research centres and museum galleries – have complex and often conflicting requirements in terms of their programming and functioning. On the one hand, they need to provide open and equal access to knowledge to various categories of users. On the other, they have needs that might restrict or condition the arrangement of space, movement and various activities. At the same time, social and technological changes cause these typologies to change from within so as to include the idea of learning as a form of socialisation. These shifts imply complex or conflicting spatial, programmatic and organisational needs and point towards a hybridisation of strong and weak programme organisation (Hillier, Hanson, Peponis 1984; Hillier 1996). This paper looks at two public libraries in London: Kensington Central Library and Swiss Cottage Library. The questions studied through these libraries are: firstly, how these conflicting requirements of space, programme and use are manifested through their spatial structuring and social performance? Secondly, how do weak and strong programme aspects of these buildings influence their day-to-day functioning? Finally: what is the role of the space of these libraries in influencing the strengthening or weakening of the boundaries between these programmatic categories of activities? It is argued that although both libraries are similar in scale and programmatic description, they have a crucial difference: their spatial structure. This difference exposed the influence of the spatial manifestation of programme on the transpatial definition of programme. The combination of the position of activities in the spatial layout and the length of the description of such activities are pointed as fundamental aspects to be observed regarding the influence of programme in the actual use of space – especially the potential in generating unprogrammed social encounters. It is found that the KCL leans towards the strong and formal end of this programmatic typology, being a library of an academic character. The SCL on the other hand, intensifies the informal and weakly structured aspects of this typology, functioning as a library-community centre

Beyond two dimensions: architecture through three dimensional visibility graph analysis

Architecture consists of spatial relations that accommodate functions, afford social relations and create visual interest. Through openings and walls, architects manipulate continuities and discontinuities of visual fields in two and three dimensions. Analytical diagrams and models of these fields have been offered by space syntax, especially through visibility graph analysis (VGA), graphing visual relations in two dimensions. This paper introduces a new approach to VGA that departs from planar restrictions. We show how a graph can be generated of inter-visible locations on a planar surface that incorporates relations among elements in three dimensions. Using this method, we extend the current space syntax analysis of architectural space to a new methodology for diagramming and modelling three-dimensional visual relationships in architecture. The paper is structured in three parts. The first section provides an overview of the principles of visibility analysis using graphs, and explains the method by which visibility relations of ‘accessible’ and ‘inaccessible’ space in two and three dimensions are computed. This leads to a graph representation, which uses a mix of ‘directed’ and ‘undirected’ visibility connections, and a new multi-variant spatial categorisation analysis that informs the properties of multi-directional graphs. The second part of the paper tests the three-dimensional visibility model through the analysis of hypothetical and real spatial environments. The third part analyses Giuseppe Terragni’s Casa del Fascio, describing architectural characteristics that are not captured by two-dimensional analysis, and allowing a comparative understanding of spatial configuration in two and three dimensions. The paper concludes with a discussion about the significance of this new model as an analytical and architectural tool

Experiencing three-dimensional museum environments: An investigation of the Ashmolean Museum and the Museum of Scotland

The relationship between the spatial organisation of museums and visitors' experience has been widely explored. However, previous studies rarely focused upon the actual use and effect of the atria on how people navigate. To understand this interaction entails answering the following research question: How exploration and movement in museums are affected by two and three-dimensional properties? This question is investigated by the comparative study of the Ashmolean Museum of Art and Archaeology in Oxford, renovated by Rick Mather Architects (2009), and the Museum of Scotland in Edinburgh, designed by Benson and Forsyth (1998). The two museums are selected as relevant cases for their spatial similarities and significant differences closely connected to the organisation of their atria. The intention is to understand whether atria account for similar or different exploration patterns in the ways users navigate in three dimensions. The comparative analysis, stemming from space use observations, space syntax methods and agent simulations, shows that significant differences in real and simulated movement result from the varying spatial positioning and character of the voids. Variability in spatial behaviour derives from the impact of the third dimension, assigning different identities and orientating capacities to the atria and the museums

How do atria affect navigation in multi-level museum environments?

How do people explore multiplex environments? What role do atria play in spatial navigation? These are critical questions for architectural design. However, few studies have examined the role atria play in visitors’ exploration of museums. Consequently, the relationship between free exploration and the design of atria in museums is not well understood. A pilot study in the Ashmolean Museum indicated that atria influence navigation. The Museum, therefore, lends itself as a case study to assess the impact of visual connections upon exploration and orientation. We present an experimental study with two conditions: a highly-detailed realistic virtual model of the building and a modified virtual model of the same building, eliminating the views crossing through the atria. Two hypotheses are tested: first, that visitors’ paths will be different depending on the amount of visual information they receive inside each experimental condition; second, that visitors’ ease of exploring and viewing the environment will also differ. Analysis confirmed that participants followed different paths in the two experimental conditions. Users visiting the exact model turned their heads around fewer times than users visiting the modified model. These findings suggest that atria play a significant role in nudging movement and affect the ease of navigation

Spatial and social patterns of an urban interior: The architecture of SANAA

The architecture of the Japanese practice SANAA, led by Kazuyo Sejima and Ryue Nishizawa, seems to be conceived so as to be spatially and programmatically ‘uncertain’, with configurations that tend to be freed from constrictions and often characterized by multiple layers of transparent materials, establishing a continuous relationship between interior and exterior. The present study seeks to understand whether there is an underlying configurational logic behind SANAA’s architecture that is shared across their buildings. The results of this exploration are presented in this paper in two sections. The first section analyses a selection of buildings from diverse functional and formal typologies in order to explore whether in spite differences they share spatial similarities. The analysis takes into account two different properties: permeability, as the spatial network created by accessible spaces, and visibility, as the set of visually interconnected spaces, either directly or through transparent materials, but not necessarily accessible. Drawing on the conclusions of the first part of the analysis, the second section of the study focuses on what can be considered the first inHdepth study of SANAA’s Rolex Learning Centre looking at both spatial properties and social practices. The particular geometry of the building entails methodological challenges derived from a fluid and continuous undulated interior. Thus, syntax tools are customized to address the floor and ceiling’s undulations; a systematic framework for analysing the intricate relations between permeability and visibility in the building is created; finally, the indeterminate condition of space is explored through a comparison between spatial properties and spatial practices in the building. According to the results of the first section of the study, where a strong foreground structure is identified in the buildings analysed, and after analysing the Rolex Learning Centre by making use of the ‘nearly invariant’ properties proposed by Hillier to describe organic cities (Hillier, 1996), it is argued that the architecture of SANAA resembles urban systems in its topology, and in certain cases its geometry. Moreover, the spatial arrangement is qualified by the control in the use of transparent and opaque materials, which originates a set of areas in the layout with different levels of privacy. Finally, a closer look to spatial practices in the building reveals that the places likely to be used in a more informal way are those hosting a disjunction between levels of visibility and permeability. This is considered an incisive finding that, added to existing research on permeability and visibility relationships, provides a new way to explore the relationship between architectural complexity and functional uncertainty in buildings