Publications
01.04.2008
An evidence based approach to crime and urban design
.pdf version (348 KB)
"Most important of all perhaps is the need to recognise that the urban environment is a continuous whole. It is not a set of discrete areas that are somehow joined together to form a whole, but a continuous structure in which the connecting tissue between recognisable areas is as critical as the areas themselves. This is perhaps where space syntax can make its most significant contribution. It tells us that the whole pattern of urban space is involved in the sense of civilised and safe existence, which it is the aim of all urban design to create. This most elementary of urban facts should be reflected in future research as well as in spatial design and planning."
01.04.2007
The spatial syntax of urban segregation
.pdf version (3 MB)
"Space Syntax is a set of theories and techniques about buildings and cities and how they function, rooted in a theory of society and space that originated in Bartlett School of Graduate Studies in the 1970s. The ability of space syntax methods to objectively measure the physical and spatial attributes in cities in relation to patterns of human activity has led to hundred of projects, covering subjects as diverse as the relationship with the burglary and hosing layout, architecture of Inuit snow houses and visitor movement in museum layouts."
01.12.2006
Can streets be made safe?
.pdf version (1.5 MB)
"If the spatial design of our urban environment can reduce crime, then it is likely that it can do so by increasing the degree and effect of ‘natural policing’ – that is the way in which everyday movement and activity by people inhibits crime opportunity."
01.10.2006
An evidence-based approach to spatial planning and design
.pdf version (128 KB)
"The role of public realm in regeneration is vital. Making it work is not easy, especially if world of urban practice is divided into silos – including architecture, town planning, highways engineering, sociology, criminology and, ultimately, end user. "
01.09.2006
The golden age of cites? How we design cities is how we understand them
.pdf version (5 MB)
"In certain parts of southern France, we can see the remains of circular dry stone buildings constructed by corbelling. People ask why they are there, and expect to hear that they are primitive dwellings, tombs, shrines, or places to keep tools."
12.10.2004
Towards Evidence-Based Urban Design
.pdf version (419 KB)
"Everyone working on regeneration issues in the UK knows that sustainable communities are what the Government expects them to deliver. However, many remain unaware of how the Government expects them to go about it."
24.09.2004
Gates and the Danger of Some Strangers
.pdf version (160 KB)
"On one level, the issue of gating communities – or residential areas, in any case – is really an issue about strangers, and in particular about ways of managing the potential interaction between strangers and residents in these areas."