Programming the logic of space: a new approach to space syntax

Space syntax is a set of theories and techniques for analysing urban settlements and buildings. It is a relevant approach for spatial studies concerned with the scientific understanding of and intervention in public open spaces. It requires a previous convex/line/segment map of the area in question designed with the aid of CAD or GIS. Such preparatory task may be laborious and more difficult for social researchers than for architects or urban planners. A new approach to syntactic analyses is proposed here; it requires only setting the connections between axial lines or convex spaces in a computer program. We performed a settlement (alpha) analysis of the Areeiro neighbourhood in Lisbon by computing connectivity, control, depth, integration, ringiness and other syntactic measures, using Prolog predicates. Prolog is a logic programming language used in Artificial Intelligence and a powerful tool to describe the patterns of urban systems as socially knowable due to its declarative nature. In fact, a Prolog program represents a certain amount of knowledge, in this case, of an urban settlement such Areeiro, which is used to answer queries about the social and economic consequences of the spatial design. This approach revealed the intelligibility but also the weaknesses of Areeiro, a remarkable milestone for Portuguese urbanism from the mid-20th century.