Consulting practice
Although space syntax developed from academic origins, the steady growth of interest from developers and architects created a demand for consultancy on “live” projects. To do so, UCL established Space Syntax Limited as a university “spin out” company. In 1995, Tim Stonor returned from a career in mainstream architecture to become Space Syntax’s first Managing Director. Since then, the consulting practice has grown steadily, first in London, then in Sydney (2001), Brussels (2002), Stockholm (2003), South Africa (2005) and most recently in the USA (2006). Today we employ over 40 people in our London office. More than half of our staff are permanent employees. The remainder are part-time staffers, UCL masters and doctorate students in the main, who work here to develop their research techniques and contribute to the creative culture of the practice.
In return, all Space Syntax Limited staff members are granted honorary UCL staff status. Our aim, especially since moving out of UCL in 2002, has been to establish many and varied connections between academia and consultancy. This strategy is not only because we like the world of education but especially because we see this as good business. Bill and his academic colleagues in the 5* rated UCL Space Syntax Laboratory are this company’s key out-of-house research and development arm.
Although we use software models to analyse and forecast human behaviour patterns – whether walking, cycling or driving, our main business is the delivery of strategic design advice.
our vision
Our aim is to redress the following imbalance in architectural practice. As students, we are taught heavily about the process of construction. About how to bring materials together, how to erect buildings, how to manage ourselves and our teams through that process. In practice, architectural liability typically extends to the material products of construction: leaking taps, failed cladding panels, slippery floors.
As for the human impact of our work - its effects on patterns of movement, safety and property value - architects generally escape liability. Yet much of what architects do has direct consequences on social and economic sustainability. If you look at our research work linking housing layout with burglary patterns you will see the direct consequences of architectural decision-making on social malaise.
So this is our drive. To bring knowledge about these matters to the design table. Often we do so working alongside lead architects. More and more, as with our recent work in Brixton and Colchester, we are being asked to lead consultant teams, including other firms of architects, because our clients see the issues we are dealing with as the most important.
We use computer techniques as tools to facilitate the design process in an objective way. We are clear that these techniques are not the be all and end all. Our experience in practice has been that the techniques are only as good as the person using them. Our clients put their investment in us as people rather than in our tools.
our experience
We have a wide client base because the issues we deal with as a practice are the concerns of the public and private sectors, from the Metropolitan Police to the Tate Gallery. Our briefs range from initial conceptual design commissions – as in our work for Ashford Borough Council to detailed public space design projects such as our design for Princes Circus in Camden. We have spent the last seven years helping in the design of Trafalgar Square, from initial sketch ideas to detailed movement modelling.
We were retained by Transport for London to observe the effects of the redesign on pedestrian activity patterns. Our movement forecasts have worked. We very closely predicted the pattern of pedestrian movement that would result from building the new central staircase.
An important by-product of projects such as Trafalgar Square has been the development of new theoretical ideas and methodological techniques. Trafalgar Square encouraged us to invent an entirely new way of modelling space. Our work in Bracknell also in the late 1990s seeded a new concept of “centrality” as a way of describing how the spatial form of town centres encourages economic sustainability.
One of the most important lessons we have learned from the last 15 years of practice is that our work feeds back into the fundamental academic research programme. Although this drives our development as a practice, this fact is not always of prime interest to clients and we are clear that our main business purpose is the delivery of clear, evidence-based advice, regardless of its academic origins.
conclusions
Our aim therefore, is to tune our knowledge to development concerns. To listen to the issues before we respond. We have no set methodology. The tools we use and the services we offer are particular to individual project needs. We have no single way of operating. But there is an underlying theoretical approach and an underlying practice ethos.
This is to deliver advice which recognises the social and economic implications of physical development decisions and which helps to reduce design risk in the built environment. Born of an interest in failure, our work is focused on the delivery of successful places for owners, investors and users.