About us

Space Syntax is an advanced spatial technology as well as a highly influential theory of architecture and town planning. It was originally developed by Professor Bill Hillier and his colleagues at University College London (UCL), one of Europe’s premier research universities. The network of Space Syntax companies works closely with UCL in
shaping knowledge to advance the technology,
informing practice by disseminating the technology through training and policy formation and
creating places by applying the technology through planning and design consultancy.

Space Syntax is the world’s first computer-based modelling technique to treat cities and buildings ‘space first’, that is as the network of spaces we use and move through. Research using Space Syntax modelling shows:

• how movement patterns and flows in cities are powerfully shaped by the street network 
  
  Hillier & Iida 2005, Network and psychological effects in urban movement (.pdf version  1.2 MB)

• how this relation shapes the evolution of the local centres and sub-centres that makes cities liveable
  
  Hillier 2006, The golden age of cites? How we design cities is how we understand them
  (.pdf version  5.3 MB)
  Hillier 1999, Centrality as a process: accounting for attraction inequalities in deformed grids
  (.pdf version  7.1 MB)

• how patterns of security and insecurity are affected by spatial design
  
  Hillier & Sahbaz 2008, An evidence based approach to crime and urban design
  (.pdf version  348 KB)

• how spatial segregation and social disadvantage are related in cities
  
  Vaughan 2007, The spatial syntax of urban segregation (.pdf version  3 MB)

• how buildings can create more interactive organisational cultures
  
  Penn 1999, The space of innovation: interaction and communication in the work environment
  (.pdf version  7.9 MB)

Millennium Bridge

In 1994, research by Space Syntax assured the Tate that a new bridge would work, not only because it would link St Paul's with Tate Modern, but especially because it would connect one area of London to another.