Space Syntax Essentials

Estonian Academy of Arts - Urban Studies - 2012

SPACE SYNTAX ESSENTIALS From space perception to accessibility analysis

Lecturer Damiano Cerrone

Introduction

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The introduction will present the socialhistorical context of Space Syntax theory - when, why and how - and the reasons behind the need of a brand new approach of modeling urban morphology. The theory will be unfolded starting from socialcultural construction of space toward functionalism and modern utopia.

Section 1

Task 1

Neighborhoods • Maria Derlõš: Lasnamäe • Pille Koppel: Nõmme • Johanna Rannula: Uus Mail • Karlis: Sitsi

Photo-experience 1. Each student will choose a neighborhood in Tallinn and will be asked to take pictures of certain roads. The main purpose is of undertaking a conscious urban walk focusing on how the spatial configuration of the urban environment is affecting human perception and behavior.

2. Student will present their pictures at the beginning of lecture 2

• Rebecca Kontus: Kopli Lines • Iie-Mall Püüa: Kalamaja • Jaak Sova: Nõmme • Dzmitry Herylovich: Kunderi area

Brief guidelines 1. Take a picture of each road in within the area of interest. Try to include in your picture frame either the road and a portion of the lining facades.

2. For each road, record in a scale from 1 to 4 your perception of activity (human activities, the intensity of car traffic, retails’ density etc) and your perception of safety. Both “activeness” and “safety” has to be considered relatively to the neighborhood mean.

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3. With the use of an image processing software (aegs Photoshop): a. Adjust the levels of your image (eg image/adjustments/ levels/auto) b. Make your image black and white (eg image/adjustments/ Black & White, Use default settings) c. For levels of “activeness” (1 meaning no active, 4 meaning very active) change your image color intensity based on the following scheme (image/adjustments/color balance):

iv.Level 4, +1 e. Print the pictures 12x18 and write on a separate post-it the level of “activeness” and “safety” f. Write a short report (300/500 words) of your experience and eventual findings. g. Stick the pictures in the classroom in a vertical ascendent order by the sum of “activeness” and “safety” level.

i. Level 1, Cyan 100% ii. Level 2, Green 100% iii. Level 3 Yellow 100% iv.Level 4 Red 100% d. For levels of “safety” (1 meaning not sage, 4 meaning really safe) change your image exposure level based on the following scheme (image/adjustments/exposure): i. Level 1, -4 ii. Level 2, -2 iii. Level 3, 0 3

Section 2

FIELDWORK

Maria Derlõš | Lasnamäe

The research area comprises territory in the district of LasnamÄe between the streets Liikuri, Lindakivi pst, Punane,

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Vikerlase and Saarepiiga pst. Photo analysis is based on personal perception only and is thus highly subjective.

Concerning activity of the area, it is clear that the most active street is the canal flow of Laagna which is also considered in this work highly dangerous as it is purely kingdom of cards, were any pedestrian activity can be viewed as suicide. Apart from the other main streets, where high level of activity is obvi! ous like in the case of Punane st, Saarepiiga and Lindakivi pst is without doubt also very important. Unlike Laagna, these two are domi! nated by pedestrians and are at the same time two of the few pedestrian connections across the Laagna canal.

On the one hand, because of constant presence of people, these streets could be considered as highly safe. On the other hand, due to casinos and bars in the area of bridges, a lot of "suspicious" peo! ple wonder around.

Other streets are all mostly average consid! ering their activity and safeness. Except from the part of Lindakivi st that is further from the bridge area. The area is located far from the buildings, is bordered with vegetation and has little activity in general. The danger is evident during night time, when the area is poorly lighted and even less active, result! ing in low level of control.

The street of P.Pinna has in its length different level of activeness, more active on the side of Punane st, where this part of the street is used to reach Miina HÄrma that goes over the Laagna canal. Liikuri st could be considered more ac! tive as

it is, since it is used by public trans! port, but actually its meandering typology makes people choose more direct routes, the street is only important concerning its immedi! ate neighbourhood. as in the case of Laagna st, this one is rated quite dangerous because the lack of pedestrian roads and poor differ! entiation of the two. The less active street is Loitsu that is the most peripheral of them all and especially at the part of it, where the photo was taken, very quiet.

Isabel Neumann | Weimar It was very interesting for me to approach my neighbourhood besides my everyday experiences in the proposed analytical way. Before starting my excursion I already doubted if I made a good choice of the district, as it is on first sight quite easily structured and more over very homogenous. The area is mainly characterised by housing. On the one hand there are many attached single family houses, the main roads on the other hand are framed by multi-storey apartment buildings. Vast parts of the district are built-up following an overall scheme, probably from the 1930s.

During my walk I became already quite aware: Even in this “same-same” structure there are some extreme cases occurring. Whereas Röhrstraße forms with Ernst-Thälmann-Straße clearly an anchor in the district, which is already very visible on an everyday level as most shops are located along them, other smaller streets towards the edges of the area have clearly a 5

village-like character. My appearance there with a camera taking photos has been therefore in some parts very well observed. What turned out in this experience of this “ruralish” space and what the study of the provided texts let me already assume: The planned little alleys, half public sidewalks and courtyards create clearly a distinction between insiders and outsiders: I was perceived as a stranger, whereas neighbours had chats over the fence. The wide absence of any kind of public use (e.g. a shop or at least a candy machine) contributed probably as well to “closeness” of the small streets.

Along the bigger roads either shops (Röhrstraße and ErnstThälmann-Straße) or public amenities such as parks and inner city parking lots (Asbachstraße and Herbststraße/HermannBrill-Straße) create an area of mixed use. Though the fact that the built structure here is bigger and “more representative” the high amounts of traffic facilitated in the partly narrow and curved streets let them appear as insecure.

Following the instructions for the “post-production” after my research in the district I had the feeling of analysing and framing and therefore clarifying my empirical findings. Correlations that would have been easily overlooked turned out very obvious and enabled thereby a much better understanding of the area.

Rebecca Kontus | Kopli lines The area that I chose was Kopli Liinid, the former residential area of the Russo-Baltic shipyard, which offered a job for around 7500 employees.

My first visit to this area was about 10 years ago, when my friend took me there one evening by car, introducing the ghetto of Tallinn. The next time was this autumn.

Today the rumors about this area are far more frightening than the actual situation itself. Some of my friends consider me quite brave for going there, but I think this place is actually not that bad, yet I cannot say that I feel safe there.

The main activity is around the local shop and Põhja-Tallinn Soup Kitchen that offers free soup - saw a long queue at the door. Also in the tram stop there are more movement, but little bit off the beginning of Sepa Street or between the houses with this kind of weather there is almost nobody.

According to local people the worst area is the long house by the sea at the 5th Liin. There is lots of Tallinn Type housing that has burned; only the empty staircases stand tall. The inhabitants tend to drink quite lot and from the locals I know that this 5th Liin is a street, where the drug trading takes place.

I was quite surprised that several streets have preserved with an old cobblestone coating.

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The Neeme street area seems like a normal private dwelling area, only the fences are somewhat higher. Some renovated houses varied with tainted, old and disintegrated houses. Yet some inhabitants seem to have a sense of humor, by installing the signs, saying for instance “Beware of drunken people crossing” This whole area has very beautiful view to the Baltic Sea, yet the people seem to not have enough money to maintain wellbeing of this environment.

Karlis Ratnieks | Sitsi The assignment was carried out on Thursday, 1st of November around noon. Due to the weather conditions and working hours the level of activities witnessed on the streets was not as high as it might have been some months ago.

The site of interest was the former cotton factory or more precisely – the surrounding streets. Two main roads form the borders of the site: Kopli road on the east and Sole road on the western side. Both of them are wide multilane streets, providing public transport connections. The large scale soviet-time housing estates are present at least on one side. However, these streets were lacking any other pedestrian activities besides the necessary ones, thus the transport flow was contributing the most to increasing intensity.

The main and the large roads were typically the “average” ones. The most active and safest spots on these ones were the transport stops. Apart from that there were few people walking their dogs, passing from retail stores to apartments or catching public transport.

Secondary streets proved to be the most diverse regarding variety of activities and safeness and ranging across all the scales.

I have marked Sitsi street as the most active but still somehow unsafe. That is because of the variety of different social processes present on the same street: people chatting at the kiosks, some men repairing the wooden facades of their homes, a drunken couple quarrelling in the backyard and last but not least the importance of the outdoor marketplace at one side of the street. The safest, however, seemed a small street between a school and an actively used stadium on one side and a panel housing estate with some old men chatting on the other. The street itself had speed limits and several speed bumps. Furthermore there was a brand new playground with a child and parents present despite the cold. The least safe seemed the shortcut crossing the Sitsi neighbourhood from two main streets, where pedestrians were the only users. The deteriorating condition of the street and the lack of dwelling houses was the reason for the low ranking of this street.

Overall, despite my observations as an outsider, I must say that these streets in warmer weather and during other hours of the 7

day might suggest a considerably different pattern of activities and safeness.

Johanna Rannula | Uus Mail SAFETY

ACTIVENESS

UUS MAAILM

by Johanna Rannula

I photographed a part of Tallinn called Uus-Maailm (New World in translation) for the first task of Space Syntax Essentials course in EKA Urban Studies master program. The assignment was carried out on the 18th of November, 2011, in the early afternoon. I took photos of all the street that are located between Pärnu maantee, Tehnika tänav and Suur-Ameerika street. With these three included, there were altogether 22 streets that I photographed and assessed in the scale of 4 in activeness and safety. I did the tour with a car as I was in a hurry and the weather was not the nicest either.

It being a Sunday early afternoon there were not many people on the streets inside the area (so excluding the aforementioned three). A contributing factor was also probably the poor weather.

But to assess the activeness level I based my opinion also on my previous experience as I have lived in the area for several years. It was more tricky to assess the safety levels because I rarely feel unsafe in any place, which is probably not very good in a general perspective for my own wellbeing. In addition, I think that the area is considered quite a ‘harmless’ one anyway.

But nevertheless there were two-three places to which I have the lowest level of safety because they were short dead end streets.

Looking back, most streets came out average in safety and activeness in the overall network, which is quite a natural thing to happen, especially with such short scales. Another observation 8

from looking at the gathered data is that the streets that were rates most active did not get any low scores in the safety scale and vice versa – the streets which seems the least safe did not score high on the activeness levels. Although it might prove the general theory that space syntax theory is promoting, I have my doubts in the validity of this data. As I carried this assignment out later than the rest of the course and had been already acquainted with the theories and how the data ‘should’ look like, I might have been quite biased in assessing the streets. Thus, I think that the data would be more credible and more interesting to look at if it assignment was done prior to knowing anything about the space syntax theories etc.

Iie-Mall Püüa | Kalamaja For task 1, I photographed Suurtüki, Rannamäe tee, Põhja puiestee, Niine, Valgevase, Kotzebue, Tööstuse, Soo, VäikePatarei, Suur-Laagri, Kopli, Uus-Kalamaja, Kalju and VanaKalamaja street. I started on a bicycle from Suurtüki street around 4 p.m and finished my trip around 5.30 p.m in Kopli street. ! I tried to assess the activeness and safety in the scale that is most characteristic to the area in general. In my opinion, the part of Kalamaja that I observed is relatively peaceful and does not stand out by dense street activity. The area that I took under observation consisted of smaller streets as well as larger traffic arteries: Rannamäe tee, Põhja puiestee, Soo, Tööstuse and Ko-

pli. It can be said that the streets made up a network of larger streets that were interconnected with smaller ones. The larger ones tended to be one way streets with a 30 km/h speed limit.

In reality, most cars drove at a higher speed, which made the street less safe. The pedestrian crossings did not have traffic lights and they were not regulated by traffic lights. Most of the activities were concentrated around Soo, Põhja pst, Kopli street that had more stores, restaurants, public transportation stops etc. Tööstuse can be considered a busy street as well, but the activity on that street was relatively low. ! Smaller streets were quite safe and had little activity. What might pose a threat to, for example a person on a bicycle, are blind spots on street corners, and also the huge amount of parked cars along the sidewalk, because it makes the street remarkably more narrow. To generalize, the smaller streets tended to be less active and safer, compared to the traffic arteries, that were active, but could not have been considered safe.

On the other hand, there were smaller streets where the level of activity and safety were more or less the same, that made them quite pleasant places to be. ! Finally, I noticed that most of the longer streets were very different in character. For example Vana-Kalamaja street crosses with Soo, Tööstuse, Niine and Kotzebue and Kopli street, and each section of it becomes a separate street so to say. The part thatʼs between Soo and Suur-Patarei is different in the scale of 9

activity and safety compared to the section between Soo and Tööstuse street, or between Tööstuse and Kopli which made evaluating the situation a bit tricky.

Jaak Sova | Nõmme On first of November, I took an one hour walk in Nõmme. I chose a small area which consisted around 20 street and I photographed Vabduse pst, Pargi, Sihi, Sanatooriumi, Kõla, J.V Jannseni, Olevi, Taara, Laulu, Ugala and Hiiu street. I started to walk from the corner of Pargi street and Vabaduse pst. around 4.45 pm. and I finished my journey around 5.45 pm.

It was an rush hour and everybody were hurry to get their homes, therefore i chose the area in a way that it would consist a street with lot of traffic and its smaller neighbourhood streets to see the contrast of activities. The weather was cold and snowy and many sidewalks on smaller street were covered with snow, so I had to walk on a road. While walking, I obsereved the streets from two aspects: acitivity and safety in the scale of 4 and tried to scale it in the general characteristic of the area.

The chosen area in Nõmme were quite peaceful, except Vabaduse pst. which is one of the main highways in Nõmme and where all the activity is concentrated around. Obviously It was also the most active street in the area, but because of all the passing by cars, I sometimes did not feel quite safe while walking in there. The smaller streets had less acitivity, except Hiiu

street which were crossing with Vabaduse pst and had a bus stop full of people. Smaller street were usually also safer, except J.V Jannseni street, which did not have any pavement and I had to walk on a road, but the street had more drivers then other smaller streets.

It was also interesting how on some smaller streets I had mixed feelings. Although it had small activity, the west side of the street from Sihi did not feel safe at all, because of surrounding trees and small road without pavement. The east side of Sanatooriumi from the point of Sihi street were very safe, because it had a pavement and I was surroudned by houses. On one side of the Taara street (closer to Olevi), the activity was did not have any activity and was very safe – I could easily walk in the middle of the road because there were no drivers. but on other side (closer to Pargi) of Taara, the street were smaller but had more activity and I did not feel so safe. The reason, I believe, is that on the corner of Pargi and taara were a kindergarden and many drivers passed me by, but I had no place to walk because the street was so narrow.

Generally, most streets were quite average in activeness and safety, which is quite understandable while observing a small area. Although there were some contrasts, I believe that my walk and observation validates general theory of space syntax.

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Pille Koppel | Nõmme I arrived to the area around 16.45. From this time it started to get dark and also the streetlights played important role.

I started from a bus stop next to market that was a busy area and I felt safe. I turned to the Vana- Pärnu mnt that didn’t feel good at first because of the building that was strongly turned it’s back to the street (place for dustbins, no finishing on the wall on this side, no greenery between road and the building). Passing the building it started to be busy, there was a music school (importance of public buildings!). Going along the road, I passed a little dead end road. There was a backyard of a kindergarten, but didn’t feel safe, because of no activity and being clearly backside of sth. The street continued with having forest on one side and I didn’t dare to go there, I felt like I would go too far, also poor lighting and the danger from the forest. I continued to Raua street, Kuiv and Glehni, that all looked quite a lot the same, having no sidewalks, fences and back there houses.

Deeper I got, more unwelcomed I felt. There were no landmarks to see where I am and where I should go and I started to feel uncomfortable, feeling like in a labyrinth. After getting out from this area to the busy Raudtee street, I felt like back on track. There was also a bus stop that filled me with comfort. I turned to the Pärnu mnt that was clearly oriented for cars: lots of traffic, narrow sidewalks in bad shape, that made me feel unpleasant and I turned to other way of Raudtee street, that was

at first uncomfortable because of the cars, but it got much better having some shops and activity there. Jaama street felt very nice with a little urban design, being mainly for pedestrians, that was using the way quite a lot. Being back on Pärnu mnt was also good, because of being quite busy and with certain places for pedestrians. On the street were shops, cafeterias, restaurants. Dead end Kuuse street felt unsafe because of the bad lighting and no activity. I felt unwelcomed. Männi street didn’t feel so good because of the high fence but there was some activity and a school and library that made it feel much better.

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Elements of Space Syntax

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The first part of the seminar will be dedicated to the presentation of the field work results, where the pictures and the short report will be discussed to introduce the next steps of Space Syntax theory. The second part will introduce the technique used in Space Syntax to model urban morphology.

Section 1

Task 2

Readings Karlis Ratnieks Legeby, A., 2009. Accessibility and Urban Life: Aspects on Social Segregation. 7th international Space Syntax symposium, pp.1–11.

Rebecca Kontus: Era, R.T., 2012. Improving pedestrian accessibility to public space through space syntax analysis. In 8th International Space Syntax Symposium. pp. 1–16.

Case Studies 1. Each student will read 1 short article introducing a representative case study for the understanding of the academic development of Space Syntax theory.

Johanna Rannula: Van Nes, A., Berghauser Pont, M. & Mashhoodi, B., 2012. Combination of Space Syntax with Space Matrix and Mixed Use Index . The Rotterdam South test case. In 8th International Space Syntax Symposium.

Iie-Mall Püüa: Fakhrurrazi & Van Nes, A., 2012. Space and Panic. The application of Space Syntax to understand the relationship between mortality rates and spatial configuration in Banda Aceh during the tsunami. In 8th International Space Syntax Symposium. pp. 1–24.

Pille Koppel: Zaleckis, K. & MATIJOŠAITIENE, I., 2012. Hidden urban revolution in Kaunas downtown: 1935-1988-2011. In 8th International Space Syntax Symposium. pp. 1–16.

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Maria Derlõš: Palaiologou, G. & Vaughan, L., 2012. Urban rhythms: historic housing evolution and socio‐ spatial boundaries. In 8th International Space Syntax Symposium. pp. 1–21.

Isabel Neumann: Era, R.T., 2012. Improving pedestrian accessibility to public space through space syntax analysis. In 8th International Space Syntax Symposium. pp. 1–16.

Jaak Sova: Reynoso, C. & Reynoso, N.P., 2012. Space Syntax in museum exhibitionN security and scripting effects: The Museo Nacional de Colombia. In 8th International Space Syntax Symposium. pp. 1–8.

Homework Each student will read the chosen article and prepare a max 10 minutes presentation to sum up the key concepts and questions. The summary can be presented with the support of a power point presentation or written paper of max 500 words.

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Case studies

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After the individual presentation, the chosen articles will be deeply analyzed to catch how Space Syntax theory is taken under consideration by different disciplines.

Section 1

Task 3

ArcGis Istallation 1. Each student will install ArGis and the Axwoman toolbox in order to start exploring Space Syntax Analysis in GIS environment.

2. If students have problem installing the software, the lecturer will be available on Google Hangout on date to be fixed.

NB: Due of obstacles regarding ArcGis licensing system, the course was run on QGis platform.

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Drawing the axial map

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In Lecture 4 will be introduced the manual and automated design of axial lines. Each student will begin drawing the Axial map of the previously assigned neighborhoods under the eye of the lecturer, whom during the workshop, will give individual support for all the students and answer eventual questions.

Section 1

Task 4

Axial Map 1. Task 4 is consisting of the individual completion of the axial map started during the workshop.

2. The individual axial maps are drawn based on the Maa-amet ortophoto WMS service, therefore the work carried out by the students was georeferenced and stored in a geodatabase.

In the right picture: all student’s axial maps assembled in the geodatabase - but for Isabel Neumann’s axial map, which was draw in Weimar.

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Space Syntax analysis

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The last meeting will be dedicated to introduce the very simple Space Syntax analyst for ArcGis (Axwoman). Each student will perform the most basic Space Syntax analysis under the eye of the lecturer whom will give individual support during the workshop.

Section 1

Task 5

Layout 1. Students will enter their results into a predesigned poster layout in order to make the results comparable.

2. For the final exams each students has to be able to argument the Space Syntax results based on own field of interests (social, typomorphological, experiental etc).

The requirements to pass the aptitude exam are: 1 POSTER Printing the poster which includes the pictures we have exported today and the final comments (see 4 REPORTS). To build the poster, find the default layout in the dropbox folder "Task 5" (use the file named LAYOUT, the other one named "LAYOUT measures" is for whom wishes to use other softwares than photoshop). I am imposing a default layout to everyone not to kill creativity but to make the maps comparable.

2 PICTURES The day of the final presentation, pin the photographs next to your poster in the corridor. Please, print a small map (B&W is ok) of the area where you shoot the pictures.

3 READINGS - You should have read the 3 papers contained in the folder dropbox/material/mandatory readings.

- You should have a power point or a written summary of the article you have read.

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4 REPORTS (essays) Write (if you haven't) a super short paper (300/500 words each) of: - The experience you have perceived when you shoot the pictures in different roads - Comments on the space syntax results (to put in the poster). Everyone has to comments the space syntax analysis results based on own interests but if you have doubts on what could you possible write, just send me an e-mail

ALL THE REQUIRED TASKS HAVE TO BE UPLOADED IN THE DROPBOX FOLDER BY NOVEMBER 27 MIDNIGHT, POSTER INCLUDED.

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Section 2

Final presentation

Pics by Maria Derlõš

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