Journal of Space Syntax, vol. 1, nr 1, 2010
Lars Markus, Daniel Koch
When we, as guest editors of the first, special issue of the Journal of Space Syntax, were first asked to vi centre the selection of papers around the work of our own research group and the 'Scandinavianperspective', our reaction was not only humble surprise but also a certain amount of scepticism.While the request was flattering, there is so much high-quality space syntax research ongoing throughout the world - as indeed the 7th Symposium showed - that the whole idea seemed alien to us. There are also several researchers using space syntax in Scandinavia outside of our research group, so we can- not claim to represent 'Scandinavian space syntax research'. Yet, after some consideration we agreed to do it, not because we feel we are the strongest or best in the field, but because of how we have come to regard the field and its current development, where we in Stockholm can serve as one of many examples of a process we think is positive, promising, and exciting.
Much of this has to do with the emergence of local research groups, with their own styles and interpretations generated in part by how space syntax theory and method engages with local conditions such as new contexts, traditions, problems, and cultures. We believe it is a strength of the field that there are several emerging 'hubs' of space syntax research, and that these can be recognised not only by their selection of empirical cases but by how they seem to define 'space syntax'. In this sense, even if we cannot represent 'Scandinavian space syntax research', we can serve as an example of how space syntax is modulated as it enters a Scandinavian context. For this reason, in order to continue this line of discussion, it may serve best to begin with trying to briefly map out our context, before returning to the question of concurrent knowledge production and why local communities are of specific interest in the present situation.
The Scandinavian context
There is little surprise that space syntax has reached a sympathetic harbour in Scandinavia and maybe more specifically in Sweden. The Scandinavian countries have a long tradition in architectural re- search, which, maybe especially in Sweden, from the very beginning has had a direction towards design application; that is, not so much directed towards the development of general knowledge of architecture and what it is and possibly could be, but towards knowledge that could be of direct use in the great tasks modern societies were facing in the post-war era. These tasks concerned special challenges like the building of hospitals, schools and power-plants, but above all housing, one of the characteristic undertakings of modern architecture for the whole of the 20th century.
It was the provision of decent housing for the masses of workers in factories and offices in the industrial economy that was at top of the agenda, and to accomplish this, new knowledge was necessary. Central for this development, partially through what in Sweden came to be known as the 'Million Homes Programme', was efficiency and economy whilst at the same time the minimum quality of housing was to be significantly raised, which required standardisation and regulations, leading on to the study of measurements for different uses. This led to two things: firstly, the development of a body of knowledge on the relation between the human body and different actions or uses in domestic space that to a large degree came to direct housing design in Sweden for fifty years, 1940- 1990; secondly, that soon the same approach was addressed to the context of the housing unit, that is, the neighbourhood unit, and in effect this came to more or less define urban design during the same period. In this period in Sweden, the city was understood as an extension of the dwelling rather than an entity in itself. The distance between houses was given by the need for indoor lighting, the location of the school by the walking-distance from the dwellings, and the size of the neighbourhood unit as a whole by the walking distance to the number of housing units that could support a local service centre and which was also considered to be optimal to build stable social communities. All in all, it created an extraordinary domesticated urban landscape.
In this way Swedish cities and dwellings produced in this time period, a majority of all housing units in Sweden, are the product of a certain mode of production, not only in the building industry but of a mode of production of knowledge and specific knowledge paradigms. Their direct everyday impact on people is obvious and when the critique later arrived it hit a vital part of modern Swedish society, involving more or less everyone. For the architects and their reputation, it was a crisis that took a couple of decades to get over, the field in a sense reformulating its content and direction in the process. An architectural freedom of expression was re-emerging and contributed to some extent to redeem the architect's reputation. At the same time, the critique of dysfunctional pub- lic spaces and dull housing areas remained, and when, at the turn of the millennium, architecture and urban design, in the name of sustainability, again faced a challenge equivalent to the task of the rebuilding of post war society, the need for new knowledge again appeared at full strength. As a result, support for architectural research found general acceptance, but now with scepticism about the form that this knowledge should actually take.
Therefore, on the one hand, space syntax finds acceptance in Swedish architectural culture or even the Swedish building industry, because there is a general acceptance that knowledge is necessary for the construction of high-quality buildings and cities. On the other hand, space syntax meets scepticism, given the deeply problematic situation that earlier research had seemed to support, because research that gives the impression of advocating specific solutions or providing 'final' answers is regarded with a deep-rooted suspicion. This provides a challenge for the kind of research to which space syntax belongs, as for many 'outsiders' it can seem to resemble earlier and, in the eyes of many, 'failed' functionalist research, even though it is in part built upon a critique of this very thing.
The knowledge context
Knowledge has today emerged as the fundamental commodity in society, maybe finally manifesting something that has always been true. As such its production and exchange has become an integral part of society and not something directed to certain specific institutions and places. As much research is taking place today in private enterprises as in traditional academia and the city, at least in the developed economies, is today not so much a node in the exchange of goods as a hub for the exchange of knowledge. The 'knowledge society', characterised not so much by its knowledge assets as it knowledge needs, is simply a monumental consumer of knowledge. This has fundamental implications for research in architecture and urban design as it defines the second, along with building a sustainable society, as a fundamental challenge facing the architectural profession today.
The production of knowledge has today also developed new modes, where, following the general transition from an industrial society to a knowledge society, the earlier emphasis on technology has been exchanged for an emphasis on the social. Not so much because technical knowledge is not important, but rather that it is taken for granted, while the social dimension of knowledge production has reached a critical need to develop. It is concerned with both how to foster the development of new ideas, which to an increasing degree is acknowledged as a collective process that has superseded the concept of the master thinker, and also with the interpretation of ideas and research results; that is, in making sense of them.
This has also led to a less hierarchical research structure centred on research groups and collaborations, often built upon horizontal relations rather than large-scale institutional structures. Simultaneously, small, tight-knit research groups are emerging, where knowledge is shared but small differences in knowledge profiles can lead to rapid developments, whilst at the same time global connections and international collaborations are often uppermost when it comes to strategic discussions or funding policies, at times perhaps even at the expense of the identify of local groups. All the same, rather than the larger institutional or regional context, it seems that - as Lefebvre once stated - the development moves towards the very local and the very global, whereas the regional and national loses importance. With some reservations to such a description - for even if the regional or national does not construct research communities it would seem likely that it works indirectly via culture, history, and traditions - we believe we can say that the space syntax field is an example of this development.
The space syntax context
So, we believe it typical for the geography of space syntax research that it is, at this moment, a globally spread network of relatively small but concentrated research groups, which, on the one hand, share common theoretical points of departure, a set of analytical tools and a common body of empirical investigations, and, on the other hand, have quite specific local research styles that are influenced by local traditions, cultures, and institutional structures. This seems promising for further fruitful development and apposite to contemporary knowledge production and its need for both international cooperation and local flexibility.
We understand this insight to be the deeper reason for the editors of this journal to give us the both flattering and humbling task of guest editing its first special issue as a theme issue on the 'Scandinavian perspective' of space syntax. The more immediate reason is, of course, the 7th international space syntax symposium held in Stockholm last year, which produced a fine body of papers from which we had the delicate work of drawing a selection of papers for publication. But the truly ingenious reason was the possibility to reflect the current state of knowledge production in space syntax from the local perspective of one of several local research groups taking a shared point of departure in space syntax.
The local-global context
Thus, we can try to with some more precision to map also the very local context and situation in which our group has been working, in which there are some further conditions crucial for the route our development has taken. One of these is the local acceptance discussed above, which has meant a continuous engagement with architectural practice, research and education in general. Another rea- son, connected to this acceptance, is the continuous situation where the majority of the group's members have been working within practice, often at the same time as doing research, both as analytic consultants and as designing architects. And thirdly, although we are working in an academic context which has been comparatively receptive, it has nevertheless required us to formulate how this relates to urban and architecture theory in general, as well as to fields such as cultural and economic geography and the social sciences. In the most local situation, these factors have been coupled with a constant expectation, if not a demand, to define how and why what we are doing should be done at a School of Architecture. While not always easy or uncomplicated, this has allowed us to have continuous discussions and exchanges with other research fields, something we believe to have been both productive and also to have given a certain direction to our way of thinking and working with space syntax. Not the least of our challenges has been to establish which of the many potential fields for collaboration have turned out to be the most productive, and what questions they have posed to us in these discussions.
Partially based on this context, we think this is an important part of the future development of the space syntax field, aside from the continuous refinement and precision of the core theory and methods, in which ever way these are defined. That we wish to emphasise this as important, however, does not mean that it is not already ongoing. On the contrary, we think that both of these key questions are well represented in the selection of papers for this issue, also showing how they are taken in different directions by different researchers in what we perceive as a productive and promising way.
Thus, this issue aims to both present the full width of one of several research communities in the field, but also to reflect, in the best possible way, its more direct links and exchanges with other such research communities around the world at this moment. We are of course grateful for this opportunity from the editors to present our current state of research in such generous extension, but we fully realise that the important point in this is to serve as an example representing several such communities around the world today, but hopefully also to inspire and show a possible way forward for other, less well-established research communities.
We therefore hope that the selection of articles found in this issue will be read in the right way; not as the 'best' recent articles in space syntax research, but as a selection that tries to reflect the inner workings of a typical research community devoted to the development and extension of re- search supported by the framework of space syntax, complemented by some, but far from all, of the best papers from the latest symposium that address similar questions. Together these can show how a local research community can be on the one hand clearly coloured by its local environment, and, on the other hand, perpetually inspired by colleagues around the world.