Space Syntax Laboratory Research Seminar Series: Tasos Varoudis

The Inner Dynamics of Computational Geometry and Spatial Morphology

Tasos Varoudis

The seminar will introduce two methodologies for computational spatial analysis.

Traditionally, evaluation of spatial networks is done using numerical comparison of spaces with set scalar measures such as global and local space syntax measures (graph centralities, connectivity, etc.). These measures try to capture a particular quality of the space for comparison.

First, the focus shifts on the three primary space syntax graph modelling concepts, ‘angular’, ‘metric’ and ‘topological' in order to map spatial penetration of local neighbourhood spectra in different scales and dimensions, and global correlations with established analysis measures.

The result is a vector of high dimensionality that can be easily measured against others for detailed comparison. This high dimensionality feature space is then used in a series of unsupervised learning analysis, including clustering and dimensionality reduction. Methods of scaling the spectra are also investigated in relation to both global and local changes of the spatial structure.

Second, ‘Segment Axiality’ is presented, a new methodology intended to get space syntax modelling closer to the original axial model. In this preliminary stage we investigate segment intelligibility alongside the segment axiality measures.

About the Space Syntax Laboratory Research Seminar Series

The research seminar of the Space Syntax Laboratory is a fortnightly seminar to showcase latest research conducted by PhD students, researchers and academics at the Lab. This includes upgrade seminars of PhD students of the Architectural Space and Computation programme, but also researchers sharing findings and ideas, showing work in progress and ‘thinking aloud’. The seminars are targeted at an academic audience, but all interested parties are welcome.