Philip, one of our staff members, has been researching space syntax – the way places connect and how these relate to people’s behaviour and movement.
To be precise, space syntax is a theory which examines how the arrangement of the built environment impacts the ability to understand it.
As wayfinders, this information is very useful to us as it can help us determine locations for signage or other elements of wayfinding strategies, such as landmarks.
For his presentation to the team, Philip showed some analyses of Cabrini Hospital, one of the sites which ID/Lab is currently working on. These were created with the Depthmap application, which produces a range of graphical analyses from DXF files (exported from SketchUp). These analyses may be useful to demonstrate to our clients the movement behaviours within their sites or buildings and how these inform our strategy decisions.
There is a simple explanation of space syntax in chapter 8 of Colin Ellard’s book ‘You Are Here’.