TY  - GEN
CY  - Amsterdam, The Netherlands
A1  - Griffiths, Sam
A1  - Quick, Tom
T3  - International Space Syntax Symposium
ID  - discovery10163496
N2  - How are we to understand the ambiguous nature of a space: the simultaneous possibility of standing still, moving around it or moving through it? To answer this question
requires ?seeing? the configuration through the eyes of the human subject. Taking the phenomenological formulation of the subjective ?lifeworld? and bringing to it our knowledge of
spatial properties identified by space syntax techniques, it becomes possible to conceive of
an individual?s interpretative horizon as possessing an identifiable morphology, developed
historically through situated social practices, which brings forth reality for the embodied
subject.
Space syntax theory rejects the man-environment paradigm, positing instead an emergent socio-spatial configuration that generates the co-presence and movement necessary
for social existence. However, the question of precisely how the human subject engages in
re-embodying the spatial configuration remains opaque. One reason for this is the absence
of a clear understanding of what it is meant by ?embodiment? in space. Consequently, the
generative, ?bottom-up? nature of the spatial configuration appears absent from analyses
more concerned with its top-down functioning. In effect this privileges the structural and
generic over the historical and contingent aspects of the space-society relation.
This paper reasserts the role of the individual actor embodied in space. We present an
empirically grounded definition of ?embodiment? based on information theory and structural coupling to provide a bottom-up account of the emergent congruence between space,
the individual and society.
Embodiment, so defined, implies that human subjects? relation with their ?environment? is multi-faceted; that the emergence of a relational socio-spatial system consists
of agents coupling with the environment and with each other, developing relationships
through the transformation of their internal structures.
SN  - 9085940028
UR  - http://www.technepress.nl/
PB  - Techne Press
N1  - This version is the version of record. For information on re-use, please refer to the publisher?s terms and conditions.
TI  - How the individual, society and space become structurally coupled over time
EP  - 458
SP  - 447
AV  - public
Y1  - 2005/06/01/
ER  -