Consulting practice
Although space syntax developed from academic origins at University College London, the steady growth of interest from developers and architects created a demand for consultancy on “live” projects. To do so, UCL established Space Syntax Limited as a university “spin out” company. In 1995, Tim Stonor returned from a career in mainstream architecture to become Space Syntax’s first Managing Director. Since then, the consulting practice has grown steadily, first in London, then in Sydney (2001), Brussels (2002), Stockholm (2003), South Africa (2005), Tokyo (2006), the USA (2006) and, most recently, in Bucharest (2008).
Today we employ over 40 people in our London office. More than half of our staff are permanent employees. The remainder are part-time staffers, including UCL masters and doctorate students as well as students on our internship programme, who work here to develop their research techniques and contribute to the creative culture of the practice. All Space Syntax Limited staff members are granted honorary UCL staff status.
In 2002, Space Syntax Limited moved from University College London (UCL) to a studio in the emerging Borough Market area of Central London. In December 2006 the London practice moved to even bigger premises off Brick Lane in the historic Spitalfields area, adjacent to the City of London. As at Borough Market, the new studio has been carefully designed to provide a range of work environments. These foster the twin processes of creativity and research that underpin our approach to consulting. Our aim with each of our international practices is to establish many and varied connections between academia and consultancy. This strategy is not only because we enjoy the challenge of academia but especially because we see profound research foundations as good for our business.
our vision
Although we use software models to analyse and forecast human behaviour patterns – whether walking, cycling or driving, our principal consulting activity is the delivery of strategic planning and design advice. Our aim is to better understand the impact of planning and design decisions - at the macro, meso and micro scales - on human behaviour. In doing so, our ultimate aim is to understand and advise on the consequent impacts on social and economic value including social cohesion, crime & security and workplace innovation.
So this is our drive. To bring knowledge about these matters to the design table. Often we do so working alongside lead architects. More and more, as with our recent work in Brixton and Colchester and Jeddah, we are being asked to lead consultant teams, including other firms of architects, because our clients see the value in our approach.
our experience
We have a wide client base because the issues we deal with as a practice are the concerns of the public and private sectors, from the Metropolitan Police to the Tate Gallery. Our briefs range from initial conceptual design commissions – as in our work at the
Elephant & Castle to detailed public space design projects such as our design for Princes Circus in Camden. We have spent the last seven years helping in the design of Trafalgar Square, from initial sketch ideas to detailed movement modelling. We were retained by Transport for London to observe the effects of the redesign on pedestrian activity patterns. Our movement forecasts have worked. We very closely predicted the pattern of pedestrian movement that would result from building the new central staircase.
An important by-product of projects such as Trafalgar Square has been the development of new theoretical ideas and methodological techniques. Trafalgar Square encouraged us to invent an entirely new way of modelling space. Our work in Bracknell also in the late 1990s seeded a new concept of “centrality” as a way of describing how the spatial form of town centres encourages economic sustainability.The large-scale masterplanning of Jeddah has provided an immediate test bed for newly developed spatial accessibility software.
One of the most important lessons we have learned from the last 20 years of practice is that our work feeds back into the fundamental academic research programme. Although this drives our development as a practice, this fact is not always of prime interest to clients and we are clear that our main business purpose is the delivery of clear, evidence-based advice, regardless of its academic origins.
continuing mission
Our aim therefore, is to tune our knowledge to development concerns. To listen to the issues before we respond. We do not operate to a fixed methodology, either in terms of the tools we use or the partnerships we form across disciplines. The techniques we apply and the services we offer are particular to individual project needs. We have no single way of operating. But there is an underlying theoretical approach and an underlying practice ethos.
This is to deliver advice that recognises the social and economic implications of planning and design decisions and that helps to reduce design risk in the built environment. Born of an interest in failure, our work is focused on the delivery of successful places for owners, investors and users.