The Syntax of City Space

The Syntax of City Space
Author: Mark David Major
Publisher: Routledge
Total Pages: 335
Release: 2018-03-14
Genre: Architecture
ISBN: 1351401599

Many people see American cities as a radical departure in the history of town planning because of their planned nature based on the geometrical division of the land. However, other cities of the world also began as planned towns with geometric layouts so American cities are not unique. Why did the regular grid come to so pervasively characterize American urbanism? Are American cities really so different? The Syntax of City Space: American Urban Grids by Mark David Major with Foreword by Ruth Conroy Dalton (co-editor of Take One Building) answers these questions and much more by exploring the urban morphology of American cities. It argues American cities do represent a radical departure in the history of town planning while, simultaneously, still being subject to the same processes linking the street network and function found in other types of cities around the world. A historical preference for regularity in town planning had a profound influence on American urbanism, which endures to this day.

The Syntax of City Space

The Syntax of City Space
Author: Mark Major
Publisher:
Total Pages: 258
Release: 2018-03-29
Genre: Cities and towns
ISBN: 9781138301573

Many people see American cities as a radical departure in the history of town planning because of their planned nature based on the geometrical division of the land. However, other cities of the world also began as planned towns with geometric layouts so American cities are not unique. Why did the regular grid come to so pervasively characterize American urbanism? Are American cities really so different? The Syntax of City Space: American Urban Grids by Mark David Major with Foreword by Ruth Conroy Dalton (co-editor of Take One Building) answers these questions and much more by exploring the urban morphology of American cities. It argues American cities do represent a radical departure in the history of town planning while, simultaneously, still being subject to the same processes linking the street network and function found in other types of cities around the world. A historical preference for regularity in town planning had a profound influence on American urbanism, which endures to this day.

Introduction to Space Syntax in Urban Studies

Introduction to Space Syntax in Urban Studies
Author: Akkelies van Nes
Publisher: Springer Nature
Total Pages: 265
Release: 2021-07-31
Genre: Political Science
ISBN: 3030591409

This open access textbook is a comprehensive introduction to space syntax method and theory for graduate students and researchers. It provides a step-by-step approach for its application in urban planning and design. This textbook aims to increase the accessibility of the space syntax method for the first time to all graduate students and researchers who are dealing with the built environment, such as those in the field of architecture, urban design and planning, urban sociology, urban geography, archaeology, road engineering, and environmental psychology. Taking a didactical approach, the authors have structured each chapter to explain key concepts and show practical examples followed by underlying theory and provided exercises to facilitate learning in each chapter. The textbook gradually eases the reader into the fundamental concepts and leads them towards complex theories and applications. In summary, the general competencies gain after reading this book are: – to understand, explain, and discuss space syntax as a method and theory; – be capable of undertaking various space syntax analyses such as axial analysis, segment analysis, point depth analysis, or visibility analysis; – be able to apply space syntax for urban research and design practice; – be able to interpret and evaluate space syntax analysis results and embed these in a wider context; – be capable of producing new original work using space syntax. This holistic textbook functions as compulsory literature for spatial analysis courses where space syntax is part of the methods taught. Likewise, this space syntax book is useful for graduate students and researchers who want to do self-study. Furthermore, the book provides readers with the fundamental knowledge to understand and critically reflect on existing literature using space syntax.

Syntax of Cities

Syntax of Cities
Author: Peter F. Smith
Publisher: Routledge
Total Pages: 408
Release: 2013-05-13
Genre: Architecture
ISBN: 113568619X

This book was first published in 1977. In bringing together psychology and urban design there is always the risk of alienating specialists in both fields. The psychologist may resent the failure to observe the strict rigour of his subject, whilst the urban designer may be put off by such rigour as exists. In such a book as this, it is only possible briefly to refer to the research that has prompted these ideas. The author hopes the references will be taken up by those who have an intrinsic interest in the psychological theory. The aim is to apply different aspects of psychology to the problem of urban design in an attempt to probe into how it is that some towns and cities offer pleasure in many dimensions.

Syntax of Cities

Syntax of Cities
Author: Peter F. Smith
Publisher: Routledge
Total Pages: 275
Release: 2013-05-13
Genre: Architecture
ISBN: 1135686122

This book was first published in 1977. In bringing together psychology and urban design there is always the risk of alienating specialists in both fields. The psychologist may resent the failure to observe the strict rigour of his subject, whilst the urban designer may be put off by such rigour as exists. In such a book as this, it is only possible briefly to refer to the research that has prompted these ideas. The author hopes the references will be taken up by those who have an intrinsic interest in the psychological theory. The aim is to apply different aspects of psychology to the problem of urban design in an attempt to probe into how it is that some towns and cities offer pleasure in many dimensions.

Handbook of Research on Digital Research Methods and Architectural Tools in Urban Planning and Design

Handbook of Research on Digital Research Methods and Architectural Tools in Urban Planning and Design
Author: Abusaada, Hisham
Publisher: IGI Global
Total Pages: 445
Release: 2019-06-28
Genre: Architecture
ISBN: 1522592407

The efficient usage, investigation, and promotion of new methods, tools, and technologies within the field of architecture, particularly in urban planning and design, is becoming more critical as innovation holds the key to cities becoming smarter and ultimately more sustainable. In response to this need, strategies that can potentially yield more realistic results are continually being sought. The Handbook of Research on Digital Research Methods and Architectural Tools in Urban Planning and Design is a critical reference source that comprehensively covers the concepts and processes of more than 20 new methods in both planning and design in the field of architecture and aims to explain the ways for researchers to apply these methods in their works. Pairing innovative approaches alongside traditional research methods, the physical dimensions of traditional and new cities are addressed in addition to the non-physical aspects and applied models that are currently under development in new settlements such as sustainable cities, smart cities, creative cities, and intercultural cities. Featuring a wide range of topics such as built environment, urban morphology, and city information modeling, this book is essential for researchers, academicians, professionals, technology developers, architects, engineers, and policymakers.

The Mathematics of Urban Morphology

The Mathematics of Urban Morphology
Author: Luca D'Acci
Publisher: Springer
Total Pages: 556
Release: 2019-03-23
Genre: Mathematics
ISBN: 3030123812

This edited volume provides an essential resource for urban morphology, the study of urban forms and structures, offering a much-needed mathematical perspective. Experts on a variety of mathematical modeling techniques provide new insights into specific aspects of the field, such as street networks, sustainability, and urban growth. The chapters collected here make a clear case for the importance of tools and methods to understand, model, and simulate the formation and evolution of cities. The chapters cover a wide variety of topics in urban morphology, and are conveniently organized by their mathematical principles. The first part covers fractals and focuses on how self-similar structures sort themselves out through competition. This is followed by a section on cellular automata, and includes chapters exploring how they generate fractal forms. Networks are the focus of the third part, which includes street networks and other forms as well. Chapters that examine complexity and its relation to urban structures are in part four.The fifth part introduces a variety of other quantitative models that can be used to study urban morphology. In the book’s final section, a series of multidisciplinary commentaries offers readers new ways of looking at the relationship between mathematics and urban forms. Being the first book on this topic, Mathematics of Urban Morphology will be an invaluable resource for applied mathematicians and anyone studying urban morphology. Additionally, anyone who is interested in cities from the angle of economics, sociology, architecture, or geography will also find it useful. "This book provides a useful perspective on the state of the art with respect to urban morphology in general and mathematics as tools and frames to disentangle the ideas that pervade arguments about form and function in particular. There is much to absorb in the pages that follow and there are many pointers to ways in which these ideas can be linked to related theories of cities, urban design and urban policy analysis as well as new movements such as the role of computation in cities and the idea of the smart city. Much food for thought. Read on, digest, enjoy." From the foreword by Michael Batty

Cities Made of Boundaries

Cities Made of Boundaries
Author: Benjamin N. Vis
Publisher: UCL Press
Total Pages: 419
Release: 2018-09-17
Genre: Architecture
ISBN: 1787351068

Cities Made of Boundaries presents the theoretical foundation and concepts for a new social scientific urban morphological mapping method, Boundary Line Type (BLT) Mapping. Its vantage is a plea to establish a frame of reference for radically comparative urban studies positioned between geography and archaeology. Based in multidisciplinary social and spatial theory, a critical realist understanding of the boundaries that compose built space is operationalised by a mapping practice utilising Geographical Information Systems (GIS). Benjamin N. Vis gives a precise account of how BLT Mapping can be applied to detailed historical, reconstructed, contemporary, and archaeological urban plans, exemplified by sixteenth to twenty-first century Winchester (UK) and Classic Maya Chunchucmil (Mexico). This account demonstrates how the functional and experiential difference between compact western and tropical dispersed cities can be explored. The methodological development of Cities Made of Boundaries will appeal to readers interested in the comparative social analysis of built environments, and those seeking to expand the evidence-base of design options to structure urban life and development.

Take One Building : Interdisciplinary Research Perspectives of the Seattle Central Library

Take One Building : Interdisciplinary Research Perspectives of the Seattle Central Library
Author: Ruth Conroy Dalton
Publisher: Routledge
Total Pages: 273
Release: 2016-11-25
Genre: Architecture
ISBN: 1317114639

This book evaluates how we experience and understand buildings in different ways depending upon our academic and professional background. With reference to Rem Koolhaas' Seattle Central Library, the book illustrates a range of different methods available through its application to the building. By seeing such a variety of different research methods applied to one setting, it provides the opportunity for researchers to understand how tools can highlight various aspects of a building and how those different methods can augment, or complement, each other. Unique to this book are contributions from internationally renowned academics from fields including architecture, ethnography, architectural criticism, phenomenology, sociology, environmental psychology and cognitive science, all of which are united by a single, real-world application, the Seattle Central Library. This book will be of interest to architects and students of architecture as well as disciplines such as ethnography, sociology, environmental psychology, and cognitive science that have an interest in applying research methods to the built environment.

Space Is the Machine

Space Is the Machine
Author: Bill Hillier
Publisher: CreateSpace
Total Pages: 370
Release: 2015-04-12
Genre:
ISBN: 9781511697767

Since 'The Social Logic of Space' was published in 1984, Bill Hillier and his colleagues at University College London have been conducting research on how space features in the form and functioning of buildings and cities. A key outcome is the concept of 'spatial configuration' meaning relations which take account of other relations in a complex. New techniques have been developed and applied to a wide range of architectural and urban problems. The aim of this book is to assemble some of this work and show how it leads to a new type of theory of architecture, an analytic theory in which understanding and design advance together. The success of configurational ideas in bringing to light the spatial logic of buildings and cities suggests that it might be possible to extend these ideas to other areas of the human sciences where problems of configuration are critical.