Presentation of the MSc
Presentation of the Thesis

MSc

Αcademic year 1994/95

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Completed studies by attending to the "MSc in Advanced Architectural Studies" of the Bartlett School of Architecture and Planning – Graduate Studies / UCL - University of London.

The course of studies succeeds:

to make the student familiar to the contemporary theories of analysis and interpretation of architecture and of the human settlements (urban and rural),

• to present in considerable depth the conventional methods of scientific research of space and the spatial/social phenomena: techniques of "field research" and statistical analysis.

...and more importantly...

to present to the student most inovative methodological tools introduced to support the design process and to determine its results. The SPACE SYNTAX (that constitutes the advanced theoretical framework) is a powerful and accurate concept of spatial analysis and interpretation accompanied by computer modeling methods of space and of people's movement into space. These methods succeed to represent the effect of design on people's behavior much prior to the realisation of any project. Apart from the profound research advantages of SPACE SYNTAX one most immediate benefit is the significant limitation of uncertainties deriving from the designer's inability to preview people's reactions to spatial changes of any new project. Consequently it offers the ability to make improvements of design and test them in laboratory conditions with the minimum financial and social cost.

The MSc is part of a much more extended research and experimentation based on the concept of SPACE SYNTAX, introduced at the early '70ies (Hillier, Graham and Hanson) and continuously evolved ever since. Prof. Hillier, Prof. Hanson and their collaborators had the chance to test the methods in many real-life-projects on urban development in London and elsewhere in Great Britain and in co-operation with significant architectural offices (Foster, Rogers etc.) with most successful results. More details on some really famous projects to which SPACE SYNTAX was implied are available at the respective web site.

PAPERS prepared as coursework for the MSc:

• M. A. Quatremere de Quincy
• Aldo Rossi
• Rob Krier

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THESIS

grade A, recommendation

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"Space Saves the King" : A research of the corresponding social structures and the power distribution systems existing in the cases of the Minoan, Mycenaean and Assyro-babylonian civilisations, as these can be approached through the examination of their "Palatial Complexes" with the use of methods and techniques of Space Syntax.

Supervisor: Prof. Bill Hillier.

The study is based on the analysis of six Palatial Complexes, two from each of the Civilisations:

• Minoan: Malia and Knossos.
• Mycenaean: Tiryns and Pylos.
• Assyro-babylonian: Gimilsin and Khorsabad.

Aim of this search was:

on the one hand to test the methods of Space Syntax in the approachement and interpretation of space through examples that are exhaustedly studied and interpreted by conventional scientific methods and

• on the other hand to run a comparative analysis of the six examples focusing not on the morphology but on their social and spatial systems in order to examine the possibility of fundamental structural relations (if such exist) between the three civilisations. Motivation on this constituted the expressed opinion of a number of scientists that there are certain similarities between the spatial organisations of the "Palatial Complexes" that indicate deep relations of the certain civilisations.

The research had the following results:

On the first question:

Space Syntax methods was proved significantly accurate in using modeling procedures of increased sensitivity in order to approach the complex spatial structures (despite the lack of human presence). As a result, Space Syntax succeeded to reproduce and describe in much detail models of social structures in respect to the existing spatial stuctures without the assistance of other theoretical approaches.

On the second question:

The comparative analysis proved no deeper relations between the examined civilisations. It pointed out that what appeared as structural similarities of the "Palatial Complexes" was actually morphological (geometrical) similarities in the complexity of space and not similarities in the structural organisation (which not only involves spaces but also a whole system of relations between spaces). As a result the accommodated social structures in the different examples have almost nothing in common. The most elaborated and evolved social concepts of power distribution that came to surface through this study indicate no primitive characteristics on social level and no need of any of the civilisations to adopt concepts from another. What is more possible is the exchange of morphology (artistic expression) that every time is transformed in order to serve the different concept.

The social and spatial models, suggested by this research, were compared with the ones that constitute results of the archaeological research and

(a) either being veryfied (the case of Assyrobabylonian civilisation in which the resources of manuscripts are enough to provide a complete and solid theory of the social stucture)

(b) or, by providing a most complete image of a social structure, contributed to existing dominant theoretical approaches (that because of the lack of manuscripts cannot be characterized as solid) succeeding to offer a stable framework in which archaeological proof fits.

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