Space is the Machine: A Configurational Theory of Architecture

by Bill Hillier

Le Corbusier said: 'A house is a machine for living in'. Today, this functionalism is held responsible for the failures of modernist architecture. Many architectural theorists abandoned 'functionalism', and with it the idea that buildings and cities could work well or badly for people. But if architecture can be wrong it can also be right. In this ground-breaking study, Bill Hillier shows that it is the patterns of space created by buildings that are the key to how buildings and cities work for people, opening up a whole new debate in the architectural arena.

Genres: Architecture, Urban Planning, Urbanism

480 pages, Paperback

First published June 28, 1996

About the author

Bill Hillier is Professor of Architectural and Urban Morphology in the University of London, Chairman of the Bartlett School of Graduate Studies and Director of the Space Syntax Laboratory in University College London. He holds a DSc (higher doctorate) in the University of London.

As the original pioneer of the methods for the analysis of spatial patterns known as ‘space syntax’, he is the author of a large number of articles concerned with different aspects of space and how it works. He has also written extensively on other aspects of the theory of architecture.

Reviews

[Sandro · Rating 4 out of 5]

Very helpful in giving me the (basic) understanding of space syntax.