Bill Hillier

Basta uma linha para costurar o mundo. Através do Teleférico do Complexo do Morro do Alemão no Rio de Janeiro esse ensaio mostra o simbolismo con do em determinadas arquiteturas que tem a capacidade de conectar as diferenças não sómente geográficas, mas sobretudo sociais, tais como pontes, viadutos, elevadores, escadas, ou simplesmente qualquer coisa que se transforme em ponte. Pretendo mostrar ainda a possibilidade de compreender a arquitetura através desses espaços os quais chamo 'lugares da hospitalidade', da 'errância' e 'espera'. Esses elementos são capazes literalmente de colar, unir, ligar. A metáfora da ponte, por exemplo foi constantemente u lizada por Heidegger para explicar o dasein. É próprio de essas arquiteturas permi rem a passagem de objetos e seres de um lugar para outro. Transportar, transitar. Em realidade, elas são formas dis ntas da mesma idéia de ponte; mesmo se referindo a um plano horizontal elas possuem um sen do ascendente. O significado da ponte, do viaduto, do elevador ou do teleférico é o mesmo que encontramos no símbolo. O simbolum uni, congrega e conecta o acima abaixo ligando todas as coisas. A linguagem simbólica permite circular de um nível a outro integrando todos estes níveis, mas sem fundi-los. A semelhança dos elevadores do Complexo Rubem Braga, o teleférico do Morro do Alemão teve por finalidade conectar fragmentos de mundos e realidades dis ntas do rio: o de cima e o de baixo. Esses elementos configuram-se como uma 'solução' ao problema do transporte sobre os abismos sociais. Teleférico Teleférico do Morro do Alem do Morro do Alem… … O TELEFÉRICO DO MORRO DO ALEMÃO

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pJfpa9vv9pg

This presentation considers how the phenomenological work of Maurice Merleau-Ponty (1908–1961) contributes to an understanding of architecture and place experience via his emphasis on the lived body. The focus is on architect Thomas Thiis-Evensen's " architectural archetypes " and architectural theorist Bill Hillier's " space syntax. " The presentation highlights three claims: First, that Thiis-Evensen provides a language for locating unself-conscious, visceral aspects of buildings & architectural meaning (Merleau-Ponty's perception and phenomenal field); second, that Hilllier illustrates how the spatiality of place—i.e., pathway configuration— supports or inhibits particular actions & routines of lived bodies as they come together or remain apart spatially (Merleau-Ponty's body-subject and intercorporeality); and, third, that both Thiis-Evensen & Hillier illustrate ways via architecture and place whereby pre-reflective bodily awareness and actions play an important role in the lifeworld (Merleau-Ponty's emphasis on the lived body as intentional but pre-reflective agent).

The ‘Generic or Universal City’ which is formed by the ‘genetic code’ and based on the mathematical analysis of Space Syntax is considered as the greatest contribution of Bill Hillier to the Complexity Theory of Cities. In the core of this, there is the finding that spatial configuration is correlated with the physical movement in cities. This in turn influences the land use patterns and the centre formation which are reflected by the hierarchy of the street networks. Last but not least, a critical review of the wider context in which this theory grew up is presented. By this approach, the importance of Hillier’s contribution to the field becomes more understandable.

Introducción a los fundamentos de la sintaxis espacial (SE), desde el punto de vista del diseño arquitectónico y urbano. El texto explica de manera didáctica los principales conceptos, técnicas y autores asociados a la sintaxis espacial, incluyendo el estudio de casos prácticos. En el apartado final se realiza un análisis crítico de esta metodología/teoría, evaluando sus carencias y potencialidades.

El presente texto es un extracto de la Tesis Doctoral titulada "El Paradigma de la Complejidad en el Diseño Arquitectónico y Urbano. Fundamentos, teorías, proyecciones", defendida el año 2017 en la Universidad de Alcalá (Madrid, España)

architecture, through the design of space, creates a virtual community with a certain structure and a certain density. This is what architecture does and can be seen to do, and it may be all that architecture does. If space is designed wrongly, then natural patterns of social co-presence in space are not achieved. In such circumstances, space is at best empty, at worst abused and a source of fear (p. 188).

[The edited volume of which this chapter is a part is now available. Contact the author for a PDF of the published version].

This chapter draws on a phenomenological approach to examine three ways in which buildings work as places: first, as lifeworlds; second, as architectural atmospheres; and, third, as physical and spatial fields sustaining or stymying environmental and place wholeness. Architecture as lifeworld refers to the fact that a building can be understood as a constellation of actions, events, situations, and experiences associated with individuals and groups that use that building. Architecture as atmosphere refers to the fact that a building can be understood to include a certain ineffable character or ambience that contributes to the particularity or uniqueness of that building as a place. Architecture as environmental and place wholeness refers to the fact that a building can be understood as it facilitates or undermines a lived integration and connectedness between architecture and users. This chapter highlights these three themes because they have been given only minimal attention in the growing literature on architectural phenomenology, which can be defined as the phenomenological study of architectural experiences, actions, and meanings as constituted by qualities and features of both the built environment and human life.

Key words: architecture, architectural archetypes, architectural phenomenology, atmosphere, buildings, lifeworlds, natural symbols, pattern languages, phenomenology, place, sense of place, space syntax, spirit of place, wholeness.

David Seamon offers an “in memoriam” for architectural theorist Bill Hillier, who died in London on November 5, 2019, at the age of 82. Working with architect Julienne Hanson, Hillier developed a significant environment-behavior theory known as space syntax, which demonstrates that the spatial arrangement of pathways—whether roads, streets, sidewalks, building corridors, or other spaces of movement—play a major role in whether those pathways are well-used and animated or empty and lifeless. This theory was first laid out in Hillier and Hanson’s seminal The Social Logic of Space, published in 1984 and demonstrating convincingly that different pathway configurations can bring users together spatially or keep them apart.

Seamon’s “in memoriam” is available on pp. 6-9 of the winter/spring 2020 issue of Environmental & Architectural Phenomenology (vol. 31, no. 1), which is posted below. A Portuguese version of the entry, translated by urban researcher Vinicius M. Netto, is published in the 2019 volume of Revista de Morfologia Urbana (vol. 7, no. 2) and is available at the following link:

http://revistademorfologiaurbana.org/index.php/rmu/article/view/122

Besides Seamon's, this issue includes several other tributes to Hillier, all in Portuguese.

Özet

Kent mekânlarının oluşumu ve gelişimi için, tarih boyunca pek çok kuram geliştirilmiştir. Kentsel mekân kuramlarının dayandıkları noktalar kavramsal olarak farklılaşmaktadır. Bu çalışmada, bir mimar olan Rob Krier’in “Urban Space” (1979) isimli çalışması, yine bir mimar ve aynı zamanda bir akademisyen olan Christopher Alexander’in “A Pattern Language” (1977) isimli çalışması ve bir sosyolog olan Bill Hillier’in “The Social Logic of Space” (1984) isimli çalışması irdelenmiştir. Bu çalışmada sırasıyla ele alınan eserler önce genel hatlarıyla açıklanmış, sonrasında mekân kavramını ele alış biçimleri
irdelenmiş, üçüncü adımda mekânı analiz ediş biçimleri sunulmuş, son olarak da üç bakış epistemolojik açıdan irdelenmiştir. Krier tarihselliği vurgulayarak mekânı tipolojik ve
morfolojik olarak analiz ederek yorumlamaktadır. Alexander, mekânı fonksiyonel ilişkiler ve gereklilik üzerinden değerlendirerek yapısalcı bir kavrayış sunmaktadır. Hillier ise mekânın
matematiksel ve geometrik temsillerini oluşturarak ve sosyal bağlantıları ortaya çıkarmayı hedeflediği çalışmasıyla post-pozitivist bir tabana oturmaktadır.



Abstract

Several theories have been developed for the design of urban spaces throughout the history. Urban design theories are based on different concepts. In this paper, three studies are examined: Urban Space (1979) of Rob Krier, A Pattern Language (1977)
of Christopher Alexander, and The Social Logic of Space (1984) of Bill Hillier. First, the outlines of the studies are presented. Then they are examined in terms of how they explain the concept of urban space and how they analyze the urban space. Finally, they
are discussed in terms of epistemological paradigms. Krier emphasizes historicism and interprets urban space through typological and morphological point of view and analyses.
Alexander, providing a structuralist perspective, evaluates urban space through functional relations and needs. Hillier could be considered a post-positivist as he constructs a mathematical and geometrical representation of space and builds social connections upon this representation.

This paper examines ways in which a phenomenological approach might contribute to space syntax research, drawing on three themes that mark the heart of phenomenological investigation: (1) understanding grounded in real-world experience; (2) human immersion in world; and (3) describing the lifeworld—a person or group’s everyday world of taken-for-grantedness of which the person or group is typically unaware. A major phenomenological question is how space syntax concepts, particularly the spatial configuration of the “deformed grid,” point toward a particular kind of place structure in which the spatial-temporal regularity of individual participants potentially coalesces into a larger environmental dynamic—what is termed “place ballet”—that both sustains and is sustained by an attachment to and a sense of place.

Key words: body, body-subject, deformed grid, phenomenology, place, place ballet

Los patrones socio-espaciales hacen referencia a las relaciones existentes entre la estructura física de la ciudad y los fenómenos sociales que en ella acontecen. En las últimas décadas, el estudio de los patrones socio-espaciales se ha visto notablemente impulsado por el desarrollo de las ciencias de la complejidad y las herramientas digitales, dando lugar a lo que algunos autores han denominado como una “Nueva Ciencia de las Ciudades”. El presente texto está dedicado a explicar los fundamentos de esta “nueva ciencia”, introduciendo conceptos y autores clave. El objetivo es comprender cómo se puede abordar el estudio de los fenómenos socio-espaciales desde el punto de vista de la complejidad urbana, y cuáles serían sus efectos sobre el diseño urbano y arquitectónico.

El presente texto es un extracto de la Tesis Doctoral titulada “El Paradigma de la Complejidad en el Diseño Arquitectónico y Urbano. Fundamentos, teorías, proyecciones”, defendida el año 2017 en la Universidad de Alcalá.

Qualitative research relates to a broad range of conceptual and methodological approaches that examine the lives and situations of real people in real times and places . In asking what qualitative research offers environmental design, I argue most broadly that qualitative research provides designers with an expanded sphere of awareness that potentially reveals and clarifies design possibilities not potentially understood or recognized otherwise.

A chapter published in Rethinking Aesthetics: The Role of Body in Design, Ritu Bhatt, ed. (New York: Routledge, 2013, pp.. 204-13)]

Abstract
As discussed in the phenomenological literature, environmental embodiment refers to the various ways, both sensuously and movement-wise, that the body in its pre-reflective perceptual awareness engages and coordinates with the world at hand, especially its architectural and environmental aspects (Franck and Lepori 2007; Low 2003; Pallasmaa 1996, 2009; Seamon 2012; Simms 2008). In this chapter, I consider the conceptual and applied relationship between environmental embodiment and architectural thinker Bill Hillier’s theory of space syntax (Hillier 1996, Hillier and Hanson 1984, Seamon 2007). Hillier argued that the particular spatial arrangement of pathways—whether streets or interior corridors—plays a major role in whether those pathways are well-used and animated or empty and lifeless. I focus on the question of how spatial aspects of a place, particularly its pathway layout, contribute to modes of environmental embodiment that bring users together spatially or keep them apart.

In a previous paper (Figueiredo and Amorim, 2005), we introduced the continuity lines, a compressed description that encapsulates topological and geometrical properties of urban grids. In this paper, we applied this technique to a large database of maps that included cities of 22 countries. We explore how this representation encodes into networks universal features of urban grids and, at the same time, retrieves differences that reflect classes of cities. Then, we propose an emergent taxonomy for urban grids.

The actual lecture is available on YouTube at:

https://www.youtube.com/results?q=David+Seamon&sp=QgIIAQ%253D%253D

This presentation considers how the phenomenological work of Maurice Merleau-Ponty (1908–1961) contributes to an understanding of architecture and place experience via his emphasis on the lived body. The focus is on architect Thomas Thiis-Evensen’s “architectural archetypes” and architectural theorist Bill Hillier’s “space syntax.” The presentation highlights three claims: First, that Thiis-Evensen provides a language for locating  unself-conscious, visceral aspects of buildings & architectural meaning (Merleau-Ponty’s perception and phenomenal field); second, that Hilllier illustrates how the spatiality of place—i.e., pathway configuration—supports or inhibits particular actions & routines of lived bodies as they come together or remain apart spatially (Merleau-Ponty’s body-subject and intercorporeality); and, third, that both Thiis-Evensen & Hillier illustrate ways via architecture and place whereby pre-reflective bodily awareness and actions play an important role in the lifeworld (Merleau-Ponty’s emphasis on the lived body as intentional but pre-reflective agent).

In this chapter, I examine how the ideas of three current researchers—architect Christopher Alexander, architectural theorist Bill Hillier, and political philosopher Daniel Kemmis—provide important new insights for understanding the urban lifeworld and for making more vibrant places. I argue that these thinkers’ conceptions of place, though considerably different in some ways, can be drawn together to offer a powerful understanding of how physical-spatial and human worlds might mutually sustain each other by bringing human beings together informally and thereby generating a sense of togetherness, particularly in cities. In turn, this possibility of spontaneous geographical gathering can support a liveliness of place and one kind of implicit environmental belonging.

This article argues that architectural theorist Bill Hillier's theory of spae syntax has significant implications for a phenomenology of architecture and place. Hillier demonstrates that the physical and human worlds are intimately related through the spatial configuration of building and settlement layouts. In this sense, his work illustrates one aspects of a central phenomenological theme--human-immersion-in-world.

"In a previous paper (Figueiredo and Amorim, 2005), we introduced the continuity lines, a compressed description that encapsulates topological and geometrical properties of urban grids. In this paper, we applied this technique to a large database of maps that
included cities of 22 countries. We explore how this representation encodes into networks universal features of urban grids and, at the same time, retrieves differences that reflect classes of cities. Then, we propose an emergent taxonomy for urban grids."

Existing studies of urban riots, violent protest and other instances of contentious politics in urban settings have largely tended to be either event-or time-specific in their scope. The present thesis offers a spatial reading of such politics of contention in the city of Athens, Greece. Tracing the pattern of the occurrence of these instances through time, the research scope of the thesis spans across Greece's post-dictatorial era (i.e. post-1974, the Greek Metapolitefsi), concluding shortly after the first loan agreement between the country's national government and the so-called 'troika' of lenders (IMF/ECB/EU).

Why does life take place? This question grounds the phenomenology of place presented in this book. Drawing on the phenomenological claim that human being is always human being in place, David Seamon argues that, even in our mobile, hypermodern world, human life is impossible without place. He draws on examples of specific places and place experiences to understand place more broadly. Advocating for a holistic way of understanding that he calls “synergistic relationality,” he defines places as spatial fields that gather, activate, sustain, identify, and interconnect things, human beings, experiences, meanings, and events.
        Recognizing that places always change over time, Seamon examines their processual dimension by identifying six generative processes that he labels interaction, identity, release, realization, intensification, and creation. Drawing on practical examples from architecture, planning, and urban design, he argues that an understanding of these six place processes might contribute to a more rigorous place making that produces robust places and propels vibrant environmental experiences.
      Written in an accessible style that will appeal to academics, practitioners, and the lay public, this book is a significant contribution to the growing research literature in “place and place-making studies.”

Texto escrito em homenagem a Bill Hillier, mentor intelectual deste autor, em função de seu falecimento em 5.11.2019. Publicado na Revista de Morfologia Urbana (mais dados no corpo do texto).
Como citar:
HOLANDA, Frederico de. Rótulos. Ah! os rótulos... Revista de Morfologia Urbana, vol. 7(2), 2019, p. 152-157. Disponível em: http://revistademorfologiaurbana.org/index.php/rmu/issue/view/13/11. Acesso em: 5 mar. 2020.

"Ecology, both as a science and as a world view, emphasizes the study of relationships, interconnections, and environmental wholes that are different from the sum of their environmental parts. “Special qualities emerge out of interactions and collectivities,” writes intellectual historian Donald Worster (1994, p. 22), in his Nature’s Economy, a history of ecological ideas. The central question I ask here is this: What do the relationships, interconnections, and environmental wholes of ecology become in a phenomenological perspective? To examine this question, I consider one phenomenon from the natural world—color—and one phenomenon from the humanmade world—lively urban places.

To discuss a phenomenology of lively urban places, I turn to my own work on the bodily dimensions of environmental experience and action and also emphasize, after architectural theorist Bill Hillier (1989, 1996; Hillier and Hanson 1984), that the physical structure of place, particularly the spatial configuration of pathways, plays a major role in establishing whether streets are well used and animated or empty and lifeless.

To discuss a phenomenology of color, I turn to the remarkable proto-phenomenology of German dramatist and poet Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (1749-1832), who—more than a hundred years before Husserl formally laid out the phenomenological enterprise—devised a qualitative way of seeing and understanding that can rightly be called a phenomenology of the natural world.

"

Most spatio-morphological studies have centered their attention in what is known as the "formal" city. In Latin America, the development of cities has been ruled by political forces that have determined its form and evolution, from their establishment with the arrival of the Spanish. Even before that, the organisation of most of these Pre-hispanic settlements was ruled by cosmogonic forces. We refer then to top-down processes. Bill Hillier names this type of cities "of reproduction" because the main purpose underlying their structure is the reproduction of certain political and/or social structures. On the other hand, we find traditional European cities with organic origin and morphology, that is, they are guided by local rules of growth or bottom-up processes. Opposed to the former, these, as Hillier proposes, are "cities of production" because the force underlying their structure is economic transaction through social interaction. this work explores the urban structure of a third kind of settlement, way less explored than the previous ones, the so-called informal or irregular settlements in the city of Querétaro. This is done by means of the analysis of their urban, morphological and spatial patterns. Even when they are within the vicinity of the "formal" Latin American city, their structure corresponds to that of cities of production, reinforcing social interaction and economic transaction spontaneously at the local scale.

This winter 2011 issue of EAP includes four feature essays. First, naturalist Paul Krafel explores the experience of looking at stars in the night sky, and British writer Christine Rhone describes the sacred landscape of Painted Rock, California. In turn, historic-preservation planner Jeremy Wells considers the need for preservationists to incorporate the lived qualities of historic places in methods of evaluation, and architect Reza Shirazi examines architectural phenomenologist Christian Norberg-Schulz’s critique of Japanese architect Tadao Ando’s Vitra Conference Center in Germany. Shirazi’s essay is especially provocative because it demonstrates how different phenomenologists can interpret the same buildings differently in terms of their experiential dimensions. Such variations in phenomenological understanding raise the important matter of interpretive accuracy and trustworthiness—always a difficult issue in phenomenological and hermeneutic research.