Michael J. Dawes

Testing the 'Wright Space': using isovists to analyse prospect-refuge characteristics in Usonian architecture

Historians and critics argue that the innate appeal of Frank Lloyd Wrights architecture can be traced to the way in which it balances the properties of outlook, enclosure and mystery. Such properties, it has been theorised, are responsible for the positive emotional response felt by inhabitants of Wrights buildings. Hildebrand explains these psychological responses by proposing the existence of a particular pattern of prospect-refuge characteristics: the ‘Wright Space’. In response to this claim, the present paper uses isovists to analyse the spatial and visual experience of moving through five of Wrights Usonian houses to seek evidence of this pattern. The mathematical properties of these isovists provide measures for comparing the spatio-visual character of different locations. The results of this research show some evidence of the spatial pattern identified by Hildebrand but it is insufficient to class this as either unique to Wright or especially significant.

Using Isovists to Analyse Architecture

In the late 1970s architectural researchers developed the isovist, a new approach to analysing the geometric properties of spatial visibility. An isovist is a representation of the space that is visible from a point within a building. Today isovists are part of the broader field of research known as visibility analysis. Visibility analysis applies mathematics to architectural and urban space to investigate the relationship between form, vision and human behaviour. While the concept of an isovist is widely accepted, there are multiple approaches to constructing isovists. Researchers have also developed a wide range of measures from isovist analysis, many of which claim to offer unique insights into architectural space. Using a hypothetical building plan as an example, this paper provides a consistent and critically framed demonstration of architectural analysis using isovists, isovist view fields and global visibility properties. These worked examples include an explanation of two construction methods for isovists along with mathematical and diagrammatic approaches for producing local and global visibility measures. Importantly, the paper demonstrates an original use of the isovist view field to support the manual calculation of global visibility properties while avoiding the construction of a full visibility graph. In presenting this detailed and critical review, the paper also identifies a number of factors requiring further study and considers issues of accuracy, consistency and repeatability pertaining to the method.

Lines of Sight, Paths of Socialization

Richard Neutra, a pioneer of modern architecture, produced a famous series of house designs in California throughout the 1940s and 1950s. In this paper five of these houses are investigated to test three related facets of Neutra’s design theory; the social function of the exterior and the use of long, controlled sight-lines to shape the way space is observed and comprehended. The houses are investigated using Axial Line analysis; an established method that models the way spaces are experienced and understood through movement. The method identifies–through visual analysis and the application of graph theory mathematics–several properties of each design including visual depth, permeability and intelligibility; properties which broadly correspond to the three facets of Neutra’s theory. Through this compound process, the paper not only tests the application of these parts of Neutra’s design theory but it also develops a new reading of the relationship between form and topology in these houses.

Richard Neutra: Spatial Theory and Practice

While Richard Neutra is conventionally celebrated as the archetypal Modernist architect, his designs were only superficially indebted to the tenets of European Functionalism and the aesthetic values of the International Style. He was instead profoundly influenced by scientific theories that sought to measure and predict the way the human body would react to space and form. These theories led him to design buildings in such a way as to choreograph people’s emotional and physical responses through a process called ‘visual excitation’. For Neutra, visual excitation is triggered by controlling the way people see, move through and comprehend space.

Space Syntax, Theory and Techniques

This chapter provides an overview of Space Syntax theory and its associated analytical techniques, four of which are used in later chapters to examine various arguments about Modern architecture.

Mies van der Rohe: Characteristics of the Free Plan

This chapter investigates three spatial properties in the domestic architecture of Mies van der Rohe. All three are associated with Mies’s rejection of the type of cellular, hierarchically-structured planning found in traditional and pre-Modern housing. In its stead, Mies proposed a ‘free’ or ‘open’ plan, with only a minimum of physical divisions, as a sign of his abandonment of historic social structures.

Spaces, Lines and Intersections

The previous chapter described the origins of contemporary syntactical analysis and introduced the established techniques for investigating the properties of spaces, paths, points and vision. In each case, the theoretical or conceptual foundation of the techniques was introduced, along with a discussion of its application and any specific findings developed through its use. In addition, the limitations of each technique were also described and the substance of any on-going debates associated with them.

Glenn Murcutt: Form and Social Function

The famous Modernist axiom, ‘form follows function’, suggests that the programmatic needs of a design, its function, should both precede and take precedence over decisions about its aesthetic expression or form.

Wright and Spatial Preference Theory

Part II of this book examined a series of twenty Modernist villas using a range of mathematical techniques for testing well-known claims about form, function and intelligibility. The focus of Part III is on the analysis of various elements or features in the domestic architecture of Frank Lloyd Wright which have previously been linked to particular types of spatial and visual experiences.

Isovist Analysis, Theories and Methods

Isovist analysis offers a way of geometrically describing the spaces and forms of a building which can be seen from a particular position. As such, it combines a consideration of both fixed, building-related factors, such as space and form, and temporal, experiential ones, such as visibility and the impact of movement. Isovists are part of a larger field of study known as visibility analysis, which is concerned with quantifying the relationship between vision and behaviour.