Publication date: 30 April 2025
Number of pages: 728
Number of illustrations: 370
Space Syntax
Selected papers by Bill Hillier
Laura Vaughan (Editor), John Peponis (Editor), Ruth Dalton (Editor)
Professor Bill Hillier spent most of his career at The Bartlett, University College London, where he founded and developed, with a team of colleagues, an original research programme that set the study of architecture on a firm scientific basis. His transformational way of thinking about buildings and cities influenced generations of scholars, researchers and practitioners within the built environment disciplines and way beyond – in fields ranging from archaeology and biology to physics and zoology.
Space Syntax: Selected papers by Bill Hillier provides a canon of works that reflects the progression of Hillier’s ideas from the early publications of the 1970s to his most recent work, published before his death in 2019. This selection of influential works ranges from his papers on architecture as a professional and research discipline, through to his later papers that present a theory of the spatial structure of the city and its social functions. By bringing together writing from across his career-span of half a century, with specially commissioned introductions by a wide range of international experts in the field, we are able to contextualise and show the range and evolution of Hillier’s key ideas.
List of figures
List of tables
Note on the figures in this book
Reproduction rights for the 20 texts
Foreword
Acknowledgements
Introduction: Keys to Bill Hillier’s thought on architecture
John Peponis, Ruth Conroy Dalton and Laura Vaughan
1 Knowledge and design (1972)
Introduction to ‘Knowledge and design’
Ruth Conroy Dalton
Knowledge and design
Bill Hillier (and Adrian Leaman), with John Musgrove and Pat O’Sullivan
2 The man–environment paradigm and its paradoxes (1973)
Introduction to ‘The man-environment paradigm and its paradoxes’
Alan Penn
The man-environment paradigm and its paradoxes’
Bill Hillier and Adrian Leaman
3 How is design possible? (1974)
The science of meaning and the meaning of design. Introduction to ‘How is design possible?’
Sean Hanna
How is design possible?
Bill Hillier and Adrian Leaman
4 The architecture of architecture (1975)
Syntactic generators and semantic algebras: Introduction to ‘The architecture of architecture’
John Peponis
The architecture of architecture: Foundations of a mathematical theory of artificial space
Bill Hillier and Adrian Leaman
Postscript
Adrian Leaman
5 Architecture as a discipline (1976)
Introduction to ‘Archtecture as a discipline’
Frederico de Holanda
Architecture as a discipline
Bill Hillier and Adrian Leaman
6 Space syntax (1976)
Introduction to ‘Space syntax’
Sam Griffiths
Space syntax
Bill Hillier, Adrian Leaman, Paul Stansall and Michael Bedford
7 Space syntax: A different urban perspective (1983)
The impact of space syntax: A pivotal point for design. Introduction to ‘Space Syntax: A different urban perspective’
Ricky Burdett
Space syntax: A different urban perspective
Bill Hillier, Julienne Hanson, John Peponis, John Hudson and Richard Burdett
8 What do we mean by building function? (1984)
Introduction to ‘What do we mean by building function?’
Phil Steadman
What do we mean by building function?
Bill Hillier, Julienne Hanson and John Peponis
9 Quite unlike the pleasures of scratching (1985)
Introduction to ‘Quite unlike the pleasures of scratching: Theory and meaning in architectural form’
Wilfried Wang
Quite unlike the pleasures of scratching: Theory and meaning in architectural form
Bill Hillier
10 The nature of the artificial (1985)
Purpose, law, function, explanation. Introduction to ‘The nature of the artificial’
Sonit Bafna
The nature of the artificial: The contingent and the necessary in spatial form in architecture
Bill Hillier
11 Ideas are in things (1987)
The social logic of dwellings. Introduction to ‘Ideas are in things’
Luiz Amorim
Ideas are in things: An application of the space syntax method to discovering house genotypes
Bill Hillier, Julienne Hanson and Hillaire Graham
12 Against enclosure (1988)
Introduction to ‘Against enclosure’
Ann Legeby
Against enclosure
Bill Hillier
13 ‘The architecture of the urban object’ (1989)
Commoditas, communitas, and the virtual community. Introduction to ‘The architecture of the urban object’
Laura Vaughan
The architecture of the urban object
Bill Hillier
14 Natural movement (1993)
Space and the psychology of natural movement. Introduction to‘Natural movement’
Mahbub Rashid
Natural movement: Or, configuration and attraction in urban pedestrian movement
Bill Hillier, Alan Penn, Julienne Hanson, Tadeusz Grajewski and Jianming Xu
15 Specifically architectural theory (1993)
Introduction to ‘Specifically arhitectural theory’
Ashraf M. Salama
Specifically architectural theory: A partial account of the ascent from building as cultural transmission to architecture as theoretical concretion
Bill Hillier
16 Virtuous circles, building sciences and the science of buildings (1994)
The science of design improvement: Or, what kind of science of space can inform architectural and urban design? Introduction to ‘Virtuous circles, building sciences and the science of buildings’
Kayvan Karimi
Virtuous circles, building sciences and the science of buildings: Using computers to integrate product and process in the built environment
Bill Hillier and Alan Penn Virtuous circles: An afterword Alan Penn
17 A theory of the city as object (2002)
How spatial laws mediate the social construction of urban spacE. Introduction to ‘A theory of the city as object’
Meta Berghauser Pont
‘A Theory of the city as object: Or, how spatial laws mediate the social construction of urban space
Bill Hillier
18 Society seen through the prism of space (2002)
Hidden connections across scales: Anthropologically charged configurational thinking as a cure for localism. Introduction to ‘Society seen through the prism of space’
Vinicius Netto
Society seen through the prism of space: Outline of a theory of society and space
Bill Hillier and Vinicius Netto
19 Studying cities to learn about minds (2012)
Space syntax and spatial cognition: Some hits and misses. Introduction to‘Studying cities to learn about minds’ Daniel R. Montello
Studying cities to learn about minds: Some possible implications of space syntax for spatial cognition
Bill Hillier
20 The city as a socio-technical system (2012)
Cities as extensions of the human body and mind and potentially the bodies and minds of other species.Introduction to ‘The city as a socio-technical system’
Lars Marcus
The city as a socio-technical system: A spatial reformulation in the light of the levels problem and the parallel problem
Bill Hillier
References
Contributors’ biographies
List of published works by Bill Hillier
Index
Number of pages: 728
Number of illustrations: 370
Publication date: 30 April 2025
PDF ISBN: 9781800087712
EPUB ISBN: 9781800087729
Hardback ISBN: 9781800087699
Paperback ISBN: 9781800087705
Laura Vaughan (Editor)
Laura Vaughan is Director of the Space Syntax Laboratory at the Bartlett School of Architecture, University College London, where she is Professor of Urban Form and Society. Following an architectural design degree at the Bezalel Academy of Art and Design, Jerusalem, Israel, she studied for an MSc and PhD at the Lab. After several years working with Bill Hillier at Space Syntax Limited, she returned to UCL in 2001 as lecturer and Programme Director, MSc Advanced Architectural Studies (now MSc/MRes Space Syntax). She has been the Lab’s Director since 2014.
John Peponis (Editor)
John Peponis is Professor of Architecture at the Georgia Institute of Technology since 1989. He served as a part-time member of the faculty at the National Technical University of Athens, 1992–2005. As a researcher and lecturer at the Bartlett (1978–1988), he was among the co-creators of space syntax and the first doctoral graduate supervised by Bill Hillier (1983).
Ruth Dalton (Editor)
Ruth Conroy Dalton has been Professor of Architecture at the University of Northumbria at Newcastle since 2010. She studied for her BSc, MSc and PhD at University College London, the latter supervised by Bill Hillier (2001). Her first academic appointment was at the Georgia Institute of Technology, 2001–2004, after which she returned to UCL where she served briefly, 2007–2009, as Joint-Programme Director, MSc Advanced Architectural Studies (now MSc Space Syntax).
Related titles
Sign up to our newsletter
Don't miss out!
Subscribe to the UCL Press newsletter for the latest open access books,
journal CfPs, news and views from our authors and much more!