Urban space and its information field

 
NIKOS A. SALINGAROS
Division of Mathematics, University of Texas at San Antonio, San Antonio, Texas 78249, USA.
Email:  salingar@sphere.math.utsa.edu
Journal of Urban Design, Volume 4 (1999) pages 29-49. © Taylor & Francis Ltd (posted by
permission).
 
ABSTRACT This paper proposes an essentially new theory of urban space based on
information theory and the laws of optics. The use of urban space is linked to the
information field generated by surrounding surfaces, and on how easily the information can
be received by pedestrians. Historical building exteriors usually present a piecewise concave,
fractal aspect, which optimizes visual and acoustical signals that transmit information
content. Successful urban spaces also offer tactile information from local structures meant
for standing and sitting. The total information field in turn determines the optimal
positioning of pedestrian paths and nodes. This complex interaction between human beings
and the built environment, incredibly neglected in our times, explains why so many historical
urban spaces provide an emotionally nourishing environment.
 
Introduction
What makes us use (or avoid) urban spaces? Instead of properties of empty space defined by
some plan, it is actually the information field originating in the surrounding surfaces, which
permeates the space and connects it to the human consciousness. The experience of space is
defined by its interaction with people, yet in the late 20th century people tend to conceive of
space as an empty volume. In that view, the receptor has no role to play. Defined by the
large-scale geometry, empty volumes exist only in an abstract, mathematical sense. They are
independent of surrounding structures and of any observers. The point is that abstract space
has little to do with experienced space. Being open to the sky, urban space is most easily
defined by a plan, and the attention of urban designers has been focussed on the formal
design of this plan.
Here, urban space is related in an essential manner to its information field, whose existence
is enhanced by the human receptors of this field. Information is generated by surrounding
surfaces: building façades, the pavement, and local nodes such as trees and street furniture.
The plan has only minor relevance, the focus being on the informational content of
surrounding surfaces. Architecture is an extension of the human mind to the environment.
We build structures so that we may connect to them; this extends our consciousness to our
immediate surroundings. If, on the other hand, we cannot connect to surrounding surfaces,
then we find ourselves in an alien environment, and our most basic instincts drive us to leave
it.
We define our living space by connecting to solid boundaries, visually and acoustically as
well as through physical contact. Indoor space is almost totally enclosed by built structures.
Strictly speaking, outdoor space doesn't need buildings at all; only surrounding surfaces,
nodes for sitting and standing, and paths. As a large portion of urban space is open to the
sky, those small parts that one is able to connect with are crucial since they represent but a
fraction of the total subtended solid angle of our perceptual field. Urban space depends on
the fine structure of its boundaries, requiring much greater care than the architectural
treatment of interior space. It is shown later why the ideal boundary for urban space is
fractally generated.
Urban space is far more sophisticated mathematically than we are used to thinking. At the
other extreme from a collection of static, non-interacting simple forms and voids, in reality
we have a complex system tied together by both static and dynamic interactions
(Madanipour, 1996). Most important, this system is linked in a non-linear manner to its users.
The presence of observers alters the state of the system by increasing the information
content, thus making the urban space more useful (and increasing the frequency of its use).
Advances in understanding complex systems during the past few years allow us to tackle
problems of great complexity - such as urban space - without being forced to make drastic
simplifying assumptions.
 
Laws for generating urban space
Urban space follows a social logic that influences its growth; this component is analyzed by
Bill Hillier and his collaborators (Hillier, 1996; Hillier and Hanson, 1984). We are trying to find
laws for urban design: what is clear so far is that paths, spaces, and the design of buildings
all depend on some type of connectivity. These essential connections are very difficult to
describe. The urban fabric is composed of many different components, whose underlying
mechanisms cannot be grasped all at once (Madanipour, 1996). Different aspects have to be
understood by means of distinct models, then combined to give an overall picture. Non-
linear emergent properties - which create the most memorable features - arise from the
interaction of individual components.
Urban space should have certain qualities if it is to be responsive to human feelings and
sensibilities. Historical spaces were the result of intuition, traditional rules of thumb, social
conditions, and the limitations of available materials (Madanipour, 1996; Moughtin, 1992).
They were probably neither the result of conscious thought, nor the application of a set of
rules. Nowadays, the complexity of human interaction with space is more confusing; it helps
if we can provide a set of rules for urban space. Nature offers us the example of fractal
structures, and historical urban spaces do have fractal qualities. Both Lachlan Robertson
(Robertson, 1995) and Christopher Alexander (Alexander, 1998) believe that the texture of
space is governed by the same rules at all scales; from the scale of the planet, down to the
scale of a pebble.
The processes that generate successful urban space (i.e., space that is used, and which feels
emotionally nourishing) may be summarized in the following three axioms:
1. Urban space is bounded by surfaces that present unambiguous information.
2. The spatial information field determines the connective web of paths and nodes.
3. The core of urban space is pedestrian space protected from non-pedestrian traffic.
The three urban space axioms influence the layout of public space and buildings. They also
provide general rules governing the shape (but not the design) of building façades, structural
details, and materials. All of these become interdependent in helping to define urban space.
The axioms operate at a more basic level than large-scale design decisions. Plans; patterns;
symmetry; axes; while important, are only of secondary importance relative to the
fundamental processes that generate urban space. This lends support for the irregularity of
successful urban spaces as documented by Camillo Sitte (Collins and Collins, 1986) and by
Rob Krier (Krier, 1979). Urban planners in our times, who tend to focus on the formal
geometry of the plan, have not created urban spaces that are used.
Surprisingly, the main result has as much to do with architecture as with urban planning.
Surface differentiations, color, and texture on pavements and building façades are the
essential elements used to define urban spaces. These include structural subdivisions, as well
as articulations on the small scale that are traditionally classed as "ornament". The function
of ornament on pavements and building façades is to guarantee that every architectural
region interacts with the user at any distance. The success of urban space depends on this
interaction (Moughtin, Oc et al., 1995), and one of the aims of this paper is to show why this
is true.
The relation between cars and pedestrians is a major topic on its own. Pedestrians both need
to be protected from, and connected to cars. Although the core of urban space is the web of
pedestrian paths, in most cases the space can also contain roads (but not highways), which
must be peripheral and not intrude on the core. It is essential to connect car paths to
pedestrian paths, even in a narrow street, to guarantee the appropriate density of
movement. Very often, however, vehicular traffic encroaches upon and destroys urban space.
The best examples come from a time when cars did not yet dominate. Roads limit urban
space, yet a road or car park is not a vertical edge that defines a spatial boundary. Urban
space is bounded by buildings, trees, and walls; but neither by curbs, nor by cars.
Characteristics of successful urban spaces can be deduced from historical examples (Krier,
1979; Moughtin, 1992; Moughtin, Oc et al., 1995; Paumier, 1988; Wiedenhoeft, 1981). New
cities and suburbs have to follow urban templates for the motorized city, whose demands
dictate much of the large-scale structure. These tend to destroy urban space. There exists an
overwhelming body of literature criticizing suburban forms and modernist planning
(Greenberg, 1995; Madanipour, 1996; Paumier, 1988; Wiedenhoeft, 1981). It is not the
purpose of this paper to engage in another attack; instead, the author believes that urban
space can indeed exist in today's cities and suburbs, and provides a template for creating it.
 
PART A. THE SPATIAL INFORMATION FIELD
The geometry influences the information field
A rough surface will in general scatter light and sound in all directions, with a peak in the
orthogonal direction (90° to the surface). One always holds a page orthogonal to the sight
line when reading. Optimizing the presentation of information contained in surfaces will
influence the geometry to a considerable extent. By orienting structural pieces surrounding
an open space so that they present maximal information, a piecewise concave boundary is
generated. In this way, optics and acoustics determine in part the local (i.e., small scale)
geometry of urban spatial boundaries. This process leads to what Alexander calls "positive
space", which he proposes as a fundamental property shared by all coherent structures
(Alexander, 1998).
Maximizing the information field through geometry and surface texture opens the possibility
of information overload. That could lead to chaos, but is avoided by harmonizing the
ensemble through mathematical symmetries and connections. The harmonization process
lies outside the scope of the present paper. Alexander describes in detail how "wholeness"
results from a painstaking balance and cooperation among different design segments
(Alexander, 1998). This state is extremely difficult to achieve. Note that the harmonization
process is the opposite from removing information from the environment so that the lack of
harmony is no longer evident, even though the latter approach does reduce visual disorder
(Salingaros, 1997).
 
Information use and the success of urban space
We need to distinguish two general information measures: (i) content, and (ii) accessibility.
The content of information is what is described (i.e., the message of text on a page), whereas
its accessibility is the inverse effort needed to receive that information (i.e., how easy it is to
read). The frequency or intensity of use of information is, to first order, the product
of content with accessibility. This simple relation attempts to balance these two independent
factors. For a particular task or situation, information can be ranked according to its direct
relevance in content. Readily available information that has little relevant content is going to
be used less, or not at all. On the other hand, pertinent information that is less readily
accessible will also not be used as much.
Human beings are information-processing machines whose existence depends on the ability
to interpret the information present in their surroundings. We must be able to instantly
judge and respond to environmental information, and our evolution has equipped us with
the sensory and perceptive tools to do so: it is precisely this ability that makes us human.
Moreover, since spatial information plays such a fundamental role in our functionality as
complex living systems, we require it just as much as we require air and nutrients in order to
sustain us. The complexity and organization of architectural information is crucial to our state
of mind (Salingaros, 1997). An equivalence is proposed here between the physical use of
space and the use of the information field it generates.
In communications engineering, it is assumed that information is available, and that its
access depends on the ability to retrieve and transmit it without losses. Human perception is
instantaneous, however, so access to architectural information involves presentation rather
than transmission. The perception of architectural forms can be divided into two aspects, as
above: (i) The information content depends on the design, geometry of forms, and their
subdivisions, insofar as design organizes elements in particular ways. (ii) Information access
is governed by the orientation of surfaces, their differentiations on the smallest scale, and the
microstructure in the materials. These independent factors generate the information field,
which in turn determines the use of urban space.
The information content of surfaces surrounding urban space is low for empty or plain
surfaces, and high for interesting patterns; it becomes too high in distressingly chaotic
environments. One may use here the L-measure of complexity defined in (Salingaros, 1997),
which distinguishes between empty forms, on the other hand, and two opposites: organized
or disorganized complexity, on the other. The accessibility factor is a separate issue,
depending both on the physical surfaces, and on the pedestrian receiver. There exists a non-
linear interaction between built surfaces and the density of protected paths that they
enclose. This contribution is harder to assess, yet one can easily form a qualitative idea of the
factors that either increase or decrease the accessibility of information.
Reading the older literature on urban design, late nineteenth century authors understood the
need for an information field to guarantee the use of urban space, although nothing like the
present formulation was ever presented (Madanipour, 1996; Moughtin, 1992; Moughtin, Oc
et al., 1995). Sitte brings this issue forward in observing that every great façade has a
corresponding urban space from which it can be experienced (Collins and Collins, 1986).
Conversely, every successful urban space tends to have a interesting building façade as one
bounding surface, to add life to the space, as well as to provide a reason for a person to be
there (Collins and Collins, 1986).
 
The automobile replaces urban space
The author sees the automobile as the protector of human feelings in an age of urban
hostility. The automobile supplanted urban space after the second world war. Car interiors
have always been marvels of design; they epitomize a comfortable, tactile bubble. Such an
environment outside was rarely available to people in the past. With mass production,
everyone could surround themselves with a concave shell during travel. One has a mobile,
protected spot in which to receive spatial information. This puts the car into direct
competition with the pedestrian experience of urban space. The only advantage of the latter
is the possibility of face-to-face interaction with other human beings (now partially erased
with the advent of car telephones), and contact with nature.
Deciding between the concavity inside one's own car, and pedestrian urban space, the
former usually wins out. Part of the reason for this is the systematic elimination of urban
space in post-war cities (as detailed in a later section). The need to introduce efficient
automobile transport necessarily subordinated pedestrian streets containing urban space
(Krier, 1979; Paumier, 1988; Wiedenhoeft, 1981). The solutions applied, however, are crude
and effectively destroy the pedestrian environment. Successful planning requires a balanced
attention to car connections while not eliminating pedestrian connections. If we are not
careful, then we create a hostile pedestrian environment that forces one's retreat to the
safety - physical as well as psychological - of the car interior.
 
Built examples, looking parallel to the ground
The next few sections discuss the creation of the urban information field. Examples listed
below illustrate structures that maximize surface information. Architectural features shared
by building exteriors throughout the world arise from the human need for spatial
information. These effects work only on the full-scale structure; a miniature construction
often fails to indicate their impact. A right-handed Cartesian coordinate system is used for
the figures, with x-y as the horizontal plan, and z as the vertical axis. The pedestrian observer
is placed along the x-axis looking in towards the origin. A figure represents either a plan (x-
y), or side view (x-z), according to the coordinate axes. Dotted lines show no visual or
acoustical contact; solid lines show information transmitted towards the viewer.
 
1. Vertical facets and flutes close to the ground.  To obtain visual and acoustic information
looking horizontally, a surface must reflect in a variety of horizontal angles. A structure is
subdivided into vertical facets - thin vertical strips, or flutes - that offer many different angles
of reflection (Figure 1). Non-reflective surfaces give a maximal signal when they are
orthogonal to the viewer. Flat walls and protruding elements of rectangular cross-section
provide only one normal contact point. Note that this mechanism is effective at or near
ground level; extending the vertical facets or flutes above eye level does nothing to enhance
the desired signal.

Figure 1. Decomposition of building surface at ground level into vertical facets and flutes.
 
2. Amphitheaters. The ancient Greek theatre is the archetypal open-air concave structure,
where the curvature gives a very precise acoustic and visual focus. Medieval plazas use
concavity to great effect. Contemporary plazas are invariably rectangular, either too enclosed
or too open (Whyte, 1980); they fail to focus information.
 
3. Courtyards. Vernacular domestic architecture throughout the Mediterranean employs the
open courtyard as the largest living space. Its boundaries carefully direct information
inwards. The same pattern applies to Medieval Islamic Madrassas, Caravanserais, Christian
Cloisters, and provides the prototype for the university building surrounding a green or
paved yard.
 
4. Colonnades. Colonnades gave definition to urban space in the ancient world, and continue
to do so today in the few remaining street arcades. Regularly spaced columns create a partial
enclosure (Figure 2). Note that a colonnade has many more normal contact points than a
continuous flat wall, and is thus a far more effective boundary for urban space.
Figure 2. Each column provides one point of contact.
 
5. Columns and pilasters. The reflectivity of a plane or convex exterior wall is increased by a
line of columns in front of it. These could be either whole columns in front, or half-columns
in relief on the wall (Figure 3). The former solution is used in ancient Greek façades; the latter
in European Medieval and Renaissance architectures.

Figure 3. Embedded columns provide contact points along a flat wall where there would
otherwise be none.
 
6. Fluting on columns. An isolated unfluted column drum presents a convex surface having a
single normal line of reflection. Fluting the column turns an originally convex surface into a
piecewise concave surface, thus multiplying the contact points (Figure 4). On a larger scale,
faceted or flanged minarets utilize the same effect.
Figure 4. Fluting a column multiplies the points of contact.
 
7. Column clusters. In the engaged pillars of Medieval European cathedrals, a principal
column is surrounded with four smaller half-columns. The concavity is improved, which
increases the reflectance properties (Figure 5). This solution appears also on the scale of a
cylindrical building to break the convexity of an outside wall.

Figure 5. Complex column clusters increase points of contact.

 
Built examples, looking up from the horizontal
The preceding examples facilitate information access on a horizontal plane parallel to the
ground. We also have to consider all the vertical angles subtended between eye level and
the total height of a building. In addition to the horizontal solutions, cases are listed now of
visual and acoustical contact while a viewer is looking up. (The crucial question of the
optimal building height surrounding urban space will not be addressed here). It is
remarkable that contemporary architectural styles offer little surface information from any
angle higher than the horizontal, yet this feature is hardly ever discussed. This drastic loss of
information significantly reduces the urban space in front of such a structure.
 
1. Horizontal facets and flutes above eye level.  In order to scatter light and sound
downwards towards an observer, a surface has to reflect in a narrow range of angles in the
vertical plane. Horizontal strips or flutes should be defined, oriented at a variety of
downward angles (Figure 6). The general pattern leads to architectural features that present
vertical lines around eye level, and horizontal lines above eye level. The historical architecture
of India, especially the Hindu temple tradition, employs this solution very effectively.
Horizontal articulations with strictly orthogonal corners do not achieve the desired signal.

Figure 6. Decomposition of vertical wall into horizontal facets and flutes.

 
2. Roof edges. With the exception of those in desert climates, buildings historically had
protruding roof edges or cornices. Without this edge, the connection of a pedestrian to the
building's height is lost. This happened to Louis Sullivan's Carson Pirie Scott building when
the roof cornice was removed in the 1950's in an attempt to "modernize" it (Elia, 1996).
 
3. Roof corners. The roofs on Chinese, Japanese, and Korean temples all curl up at the
corners. Overhanging eaves protruding towards the viewer are visually ambiguous, and
possibly threatening, whereas corners that point up present surface information from the
underside to an approaching pedestrian. This extends the effective signal to a region outside
the building.
 
4. Window lintels. Throughout history, windows used to have a lintel or deep exterior frame
that connected visually and acoustically to a viewer outside. Making the windows flush with
the exterior wall - as if they were from a "single skin" - removes this essential information,
leaving no other point of contact (Figure 7).
Figure 7. Vertical undifferentiated building surface offers no points of contact above eye
level.
 
5. Arches. The magnificent stone carved Romanesque doorways and Seljuk entrances to
mosques and caravanserais, and Timurid tiled iwans, are concave elements based on the
arch. All of them focus surface information. In our times, the Sidney opera house is an
example of an open arched entrance. Arcades on the street level serve the same purpose for
an approaching pedestrian.
 
6. Domes and vaults. From the Pantheon, to the Hagia Sophia, to the tomb of Oljeytu Khan,
to Sinan's numerous mosques, great buildings have recreated indoors the amplitude of
enclosed outdoor space. Those interior spaces offer us lessons for generating urban space.
On a much smaller scale, covered structures offering protection from the weather - either
attached, or free-standing - generate a vertical information canopy.
 
7. Pediments and friezes. Sculptural friezes in Classical Greek and Hindu architectures, and
calligraphic relief friezes in Islamic architecture, represent a diffractive area that scatters light
in all directions; principally downwards. Quite separate from their artistic and religious value,
therefore, they function as visual and acoustical information sources.
 
Curvature, fractals, and the multiplicity of observers
The above examples describe the signal received by a single observer. It is necessary to
consider an entirely distinct matter, which is the total subtended angle for which each
solution works. This is equivalent to asking: how many different observers, standing in
different locations, will receive information from a particular structure? Clearly, the focus
cannot be just onto a single point, because it is likely that other observers will not receive
any signal. For this reason, flutes are better than straight facets. Curved surfaces permit a
multiplicity of reflection angles, directing a signal towards many different observers. This
simple rule explains why traditional exteriors employ curved elements at one or more scales.
Each individual piece need not be concave - indeed, some solutions call for convex elements
- yet the overall, piecewise concavity requires a wide variety of spatial differentiations on the
smaller and intermediate scales. With enough segmentation, any magnification will show
different substructures. This is one definition of a fractal (Batty and Longley, 1994; West and
Deering, 1995). Random fractals are indeed generated by the stochastic process of building
richly complex, detailed structures to surround urban space. In historical examples, ornament
and decoration subdivide building façades on many different scales: the most effective of
these create a fractal geometry (Moughtin, Oc et al., 1995). The connection between fractals
and hierarchical scaling in architecture is independent of design or style.
Michael Batty and his group (Batty and Longley, 1994; Batty and Xie, 1996), and Pierre
Frankhauser (Frankhauser, 1994) prove that successful urban forms are intrinsically fractal.
Those results refer primarily to the plan, which shows the large-scale design and path
distribution. Nevertheless, the fractal structure extends to architectural elements such as
building exteriors surrounding urban space. A far-reaching consequence of enhancing the
information field through geometric subdivisions is to endow building façades with fractal
scaling, from the size of the buildings all the way down to the microscopic scale in the
materials. Successful urban spaces have fractal boundaries (Eilenberger, 1985; Robertson,
1995); just as obvious is that unsuccessful ones have non-fractal boundaries.
 
Concavity and enclosure
The idea of enclosure is not new. For example, Charles, the Prince of Wales identifies
"Enclosure" as one of his "Ten Principles" (Charles Prince of Wales, 1989). He has derived this
rule from observing traditional architecture in England, Europe, and the East. Part of his
outspoken criticism of contemporary buildings hinges on the fact that they provide no sense
of outdoor enclosure, and that open spaces, in particular, are no longer enclosed but are just
left over after the buildings are put into place (Moughtin, 1992; Moughtin, Oc et al., 1995).
Concavity is more general than enclosure: enclosure is simply concavity at the largest scale.
Concavity throughout the scaling hierarchy is essential for defining the spatial information
field.
With Pattern No. 106 "Positive Outdoor Space", Christopher Alexander and his colleagues
identify the need for concavity and enclosure in open spaces (Alexander, Ishikawa et al.,
1977). The result is precisely the one derived here from informational arguments. "A New
Theory of Urban Design" (Alexander, Neis et al., 1987) states this in the strongest
terms: space for pedestrians, streets, gardens, even parking lots, should be formed by
surrounding buildings, not vice-versa. It is the space that is important, and the buildings are
the means to define it. Whenever buildings are the focus of attention, space is left undefined.
With "The Nature of Order" (Alexander, 1998), Alexander goes further to anchor the urban
fabric on a continuous ribbon of public space.
That concave surfaces should bound public space was put forward earlier by Sitte (Collins
and Collins, 1986) and by Herman Sörgel (Sörgel, 1918). They argued that all successful
spaces have certain geometrical characteristics, which need to be followed in creating new
urban spaces (Moughtin, 1992; Moughtin, Oc et al., 1995). Gordon Cullen's book "The
Concise Townscape" is widely referred to as having been influential to urban planning since
its initial publication in 1961 (Cullen, 1961). The evidence does not support those claims.
Much of the built environment of the past forty years could have been humanized by
applying Cullen's explicit observation: The typical town is not a pattern of streets but a
sequence of spaces created by buildings . It is regrettable that this statement was (and is)
ignored by the planning profession.
 
Materials, texture, and pigments
The materials used in building façades play a crucial role in creating the spatial information
field; the surface quality being an independent factor from the geometry. High-tech
materials are a necessary component of any new architecture. Of all new materials
encompassing a wide range of qualities, however, those favored so far have one feature in
common: they minimize surface information. Therefore, one of their principal effects is to
diminish information access (as argued in a later section, this is deliberate). If we wish to help
the formation of urban space, then we have to start using materials, both old and new, with
the aim of enhancing surface information.
Historical buildings employ traditional materials in a way that maximizes optical and
acoustical information at all angles: an incident signal is dispersed in all directions so that it
can be received by many observers. Surfaces that act in this way have special characteristics.
They are: 1. Textured, with articulated relief that reflects signals in different directions; and 2.
Painted in bright colors with a high color value close to white. Relief, surface texture, and
sculpted decoration reflect sound and light all around (non-specular reflection), whereas
pigments absorb an incident ray, then re-radiate the energy in all directions (scattering). The
net effect is the same.
Relief patterns throughout traditional architecture distribute sound and light, making a wall
partially reflective at an oblique angle. By contrast, smooth polished walls reflect back only at
a single normal (orthogonal) angle to their surface. There is no optical contact above eye
level (Figure 7). Even worse, a reflective mirror finish prevents all contact because the eye
cannot focus on a mirror. (Small mirrors are useful, however, when juxtaposed with matte
regions). At the other extreme, very dark colors of any hue, and especially matte black, dark
grey and dark brown, absorb all the visual spectrum and don't retransmit anything at any
angle. Building exteriors in such colors minimize information access, independently of any
surface relief. Bare concrete is usually a matte medium grey, with poor reflective and light
scattering properties.
Large panes of plate glass create informational ambiguity: the visual signal indicates a
surface, but there is no information. Depending on the angle, dark tinted windows are either
too transparent, too reflective, or too absorptive to define a spatial boundary. The only way
to reinforce the visual signal is to use a structural frame between window panes; enough of it
to provide unambiguous information. This solution worked for centuries, as long as glass
could only be produced in relatively small panes. The need for small window panes is noted
by Alexander as Pattern No. 239 "Small Panes" in terms of indoors transmitted light
(Alexander, Ishikawa et al., 1977), whereas we are concerned here with outdoors reflected
light.
 
PART B. HOW INFORMATION DETERMINES NODES AND PATHS
The information field influences the space
The first part of this paper established methods for generating a spatial information field,
and argued that it is responsible for defining successful urban space. That relates the
information field to the surrounding surfaces. The second part of this paper goes further, and
relates the information field to the structure of the open space it permeates. What exists in
space in terms of paths and local nodes is in fact determined by the information field. To
most readers, this result is surprising, because it implies that one does not need to design
open space at all. The "design" is already fixed by the surrounding surfaces; one simply has
to discover it. This fundamental result is unfortunately ignored throughout history. In many
instances, an open space is "designed", and the result has nothing to do with the information
field generated by the surrounding structures.
Each of the two components of urban space (i.e., the built boundary, or the open space)
could be good, yet they often don't belong together. That diminishes the ensemble,
precisely because each component does not reinforce the other; there is no unity. The best
urban spaces rely on this mutual reinforcement, which occurs via the information field. Even
some historical urban spaces are weakened by the lack of cohesion between the space and
its surrounding structures. At the basis of this problem is a dichotomy between design
(which usually implies an imposed order) versus discovery (which represents latent qualities
waiting to be brought out). There are at present no guidelines on when to apply each
method. We are going to offer some solutions that remedy the situation.
 
Complementarity of paths and spaces
Inhabitable space defines a three-dimensional volume, which encloses and directs paths of
human movement and interaction (Bacon, 1974). At the same time, paths and activity nodes
need urban space to surround and protect them. Paths, activity nodes, and spaces reinforce
each other in every successful urban region. A graph-theoretic model for connections in the
urban web is introduced in (Salingaros, 1998). The path-connective role of urban spaces is a
crucial determinant to their success. More than that, however, which paths are actually used
is determined by the geometry and information content of urban boundaries. How observers
interact with the spatial information field will guarantee their presence in sufficient numbers.
That determines, and is in turn determined by, the path structure.
In mathematics, there exist different qualities that are always linked. For example (omitting
pathological cases), every object has both mass and volume; every surface has another side;
every open line has two endpoints. In the same way, every functioning urban space is
anchored on a network of connective paths. This fact has serious implications that are not
well known. The paths and nodes forming the urban web - and its complement, urban space
- cannot be decided on the basis of a regular plan, because paths follow their own rules
(Salingaros, 1998). An overall symmetry helps only if it organizes all the connective elements
in a region; it cannot by itself establish paths, but it can damage them. If imposing a rational
ordering severs paths, then it destroys urban space.
Treating spaces and paths as an indivisible whole helps to establish the appropriate
continuity. Paths do not end suddenly; they crisscross open spaces, and cut through built
areas (Salingaros, 1998). Urban space obeys the same topology (connectivity), so it cannot be
isolated. Ideally, all the urban spaces in a city should be connected in a giant chain. It is not
only the larger, open spaces that comprise urban space; every pedestrian path and node
defines a local region of urban space, which can therefore have widely different sizes and
widths (Bacon, 1974; Paumier, 1988). Conversely, two regions of urban space are not really
connected if they are linked by a space but no paths.
 
The core of urban space is pedestrian
This is not a paper on pedestrian zones and historical plazas; it describes the total
environment between buildings. The core of all urban space is pedestrian, and any structure
has to enhance and not disturb this core. Buildings, walls, arcades, and pavements define
urban space by generating an information field. Roads, highways, vehicular bridges, and
parking lots do not; they should be carefully designed around the pedestrian core, otherwise
they will damage it. Those elements enhance urban space by providing the visual excitement
of city traffic, as well as the transportation network that feeds into the pedestrian paths. We
are not advocating the physical separation of pedestrian from vehicular traffic, but rather
their interconnection while carefully protecting the former.
The urban information field generates transient pedestrian nodes by interacting with the
observer. One is compelled to stop at certain points where information is either focussed, or
is concentrated by the intersection and resonance of different signals (this is impossible
while in a car). Such information-induced nodes - representing a momentary, standing stop
for a pedestrian - may be fleeting in time, yet their frequency can be enormous. Their
importance for urban space is numerically far greater than for fixed nodes such as a bench.
The presence of other pedestrians increases the number of temporary nodes by clustering
groups of people, and generally forming complex interactions between human beings.
Pedestrian flow turns out on closer examination to consist of many rather short paths
between temporary pedestrian nodes (Whyte, 1980).
Apart from the interest in the details of the environment that motivate a person to be there,
urban space requires the absence of anxiety that comes from two different sources: 1.
Ambiguity of the bounding surfaces; and 2. Threat from cars or other vehicles. Either of these
creates a negative psychological reaction in the pedestrian, thus invalidating any information
which that region might offer. The urban space axioms given at the beginning of this paper
lie at the core of environmental psychology. Conceptualization and unencumbered use of
space has the prerequisites of firm boundaries, and free movement within those boundaries.
This is the concept of "Spielraum" or the space of a favorable environment in child
psychology.
It is well known that, under stress from the environment, the human brain "downshifts" into
its more primitive part, which does not include higher thinking. In so doing, our perceptual
field narrows, and we lose much of our capacity for rational and creative thought. When one
is feeling threatened, there is a decrease in the ability to learn. An environment that creates
anxiety decreases our intelligence. This is characteristic of poor urban spaces. The human
brain is constantly trying to turn sensory data into meaning; looking to organize information
into patterns. When it is frustrated by surfaces that have material size, but which do not
provide information, the reaction is one of stress.
In only a few places where pedestrians and cars coexist is the pedestrian protected enough
for that region to anchor urban space. In most cities and suburbs urban space has shrunk
around an unprotected, one meter wide sidewalk, which is chopped up by driveways every
few meters (Greenberg, 1995). New stores with old-fashioned façades surrounding a parking
lot could have defined urban space, but usually there is none there other than a
disconnected sidewalk along the storefronts. This dramatic loss of urban space is partly
attributable to the careless mixing of pedestrian paths with vehicular paths. If not handled
with great care, car paths (which are stronger elements) will replace pedestrian paths
altogether (Salingaros, 1998).
 
Solutions based on the spatial information field
Urban space is not a clean, abstract design; it is a complex human experience. It depends on
an interaction with the observer and the information field: more specifically, a combination
of visual, acoustical, thermal, and tactile information fields. An abundance of coherent
surface information helps to generate urban space. Spatial and connective qualities together
determine the success of urban spaces; the path structure is treated separately in (Salingaros,
1998). Lest the reader assume incorrectly that this theory applies only to walls at some
distance away, we first discuss local pedestrian nodes and underline the importance of
receiving tactile information from surfaces. The tactile aspect of urban space has been
thoroughly neglected in our times.
 
The need for physical contact
Any function requiring a pedestrian to stop, even momentarily, defines a node (Salingaros,
1998), which is fixed by some physical structure one can touch. Pedestrian nodes for
standing and sitting should provide unambiguous tactile information. Local structures such
as arches, niches, columns, bollards, or accessible trees, which offer spots of physical contact,
are necessary components of urban space (Gehl, 1987). A combination of touchable wall
surfaces and local nodes contributes to the success of a street by establishing contact with a
pedestrian (Gehl, 1987; Moughtin, 1992; Moughtin, Oc et al., 1995; Whyte, 1980). The same is
true for sitting. The most frequently used plazas also have the most spaces to sit, but ledges
and fixed benches are often placed in all the wrong spots (Gehl, 1987; Paumier, 1988; Whyte,
1980) (for an explanation, see below).
Urban space depends just as much on the tactile information provided by local pedestrian
nodes - which establish a strong connection to the pedestrian - as it does on the global
surroundings. Nowadays, however, even when pedestrian nodes are included in the right
places, they are still designed so as to minimize visual and especially tactile information. This
defeats their purpose. Contemporary columns, bollards, benches, and seats are built from
dull or reflective metal with sharp edges, and stone or concrete in abrupt, simplistic shapes.
Huge, smooth concrete planter tubs offer nothing to touch. If the smallest built structures do
not generate a rich and complex information field, they are ineffective as local nodes and
only clutter urban space.
 
Positioning of pedestrian nodes
Rational ordering often diminishes the functionality of urban space. Boundaries, nodes, and
paths combine according to their own rules: this organization cannot be formally imposed.
External nodes whose position is determined by extending some building's interior plan
outwards will in most cases interfere with the path structure. Buildings only define the spatial
boundaries of urban space, and their façades and corners provide points of entry for roads
and pedestrian paths. Plazas conceived on the drawing board in abstract geometric terms
are often unsuccessful, because they ignore the complexity of all the interacting elements
they have to contain. Historical urban spaces - in some cases even monumental ones - have
asymmetries that accommodate paths.
There is a correct sequence for determining urban nodes, and it is crucial to their success.
Once the buildings are put up, usually within an existing road and path system, one has to
judge whether their exteriors provide enough information to support urban space. If at all
possible, the pedestrian paths must be re-defined (in most cases, shifted altogether) so as to
interact maximally with the information field. One then determines which points are intense
enough to benefit from reinforcement, and what is the best way of taking advantage of their
position (e.g., by a fixed bench, ledge, canopy, kiosk, or tree; or conversely, by clearing
nearby obstructions). These decisions can be taken only on the site itself. The result, viewed
on a plan, will bear no relation to decisions that might be taken on the basis of abstract
symmetry, which is why the latter (now standard) procedure fails to create urban space.
Ideally, one should start with the space, and put buildings around it. Vegetation and natural
features complement and help to define urban space, which can in turn protect them from
encroachment by all the other built elements. In his Pattern No. 104 "Site Repair", Alexander
proposes saving the most beautiful parts of the land, and placing buildings on those areas
that need repair (Alexander, Ishikawa et al., 1977). This approach puts priority on the space,
urban or rural, and uses buildings to reinforce the space rather than the opposite. A tree is
the largest immobile living object; it has a wonderfully fractal structure, and provides an
intense information field at any distance. You have a choice where to put the buildings and
roads, but you need a century or more to grow a magnificent tree in a spot that you choose.
 
The indoor shopping mall as urban space
The principles outlined in this paper create a successful urban space indoors. Following the
tradition of the great domed buildings of the past, and the enclosed Bazaar - the covered
street of stores in the Islamic world - and Milan's 19th century Galleria, an indoor space
replaces an outdoor urban space. Mall planners define a piecewise concave surface enclosing
a protected pedestrian area full of contrasting detail - both visual and tactile - and potted
plants. Part of the information field is generated by the merchandise displayed in shop
windows. The rest of the information field is provided by fellow shoppers: one does not
usually frequent a mall where there are only a few people.
Despite the phenomenal commercial success of malls, their lessons have still not been
grasped well enough to apply elsewhere. In many of today's cities, an indoor mall may be the
only urban space in which high-density human interaction is possible in the absence of cars.
This proves our points about (a) the need for information and interaction; and (b) the
psychological safety of a pedestrian realm. The indoor mall separates urban space from
parking, which is free and conveniently near. The only flaw is that the parking lot surrounding
the indoor mall isolates it from the web of pedestrian paths outside. This characteristically
American pattern is not followed elsewhere in the world, however, where parking may be on
top of a mall.
 
Sidewalks, city streets, and street corners
An incredible opportunity to connect the pedestrian to the pavement has been missed all
around the world, by using plain, featureless surfaces (even with expensive materials). The
standard concrete sidewalk contains no visual information, and anyway, it is far too narrow.
Even when brick is used for paving, perceivable patterns are usually avoided. Yet, patterns on
the surface of pedestrian paths can make a great difference. Recall, for instance, all the
wonderful mosaic and tiled pavements of the Roman world. Among notable historical
examples are the pavement of the Piazza San Marco, and the Portuguese architectural
tradition of lively sidewalk designs. Some of the most famous modern patterned sidewalks
are in Brazil, a former Portuguese colony.
In a very narrow street, which exists only in older cities, the opposite face of buildings can
work as a boundary in spite of the car path dividing the space. Trees help to define the outer
(curbside) boundary of a sidewalk; planted along a road median, they present a somewhat
less effective solution. A sidewalk's inner boundary consists of an architectural edge of
building façades and entries. It is essential that no gaps exist in the spatial information field,
except for cross-paths that are themselves branching urban spaces. Discontinuities such as
vacant lots, open parking, or excessively deep building setbacks violate the first urban space
axiom and dissolve urban space (Paumier, 1988). Just as disruptive is a loss of the
information field due to a sheer blank wall or mirror façade.
Different types of street corners are matched to their success according to physical form
(Moughtin, Oc et al., 1995). The worst is the re-entrant or negative corner, which leaves a
gap; of average success is the usual angular or curved corner; while the towered or
projecting corner is the best of all types (Moughtin, Oc et al., 1995). This ranking can be
explained by the amount of visual information afforded a pedestrian. As one approaches
along the street, a plain angular corner gives a minimal definition of the edge, whereas a re-
entrant corner gives none. On the other hand, a projecting corner is visible from any point
along the street. An example is the projecting rounded-corner bay of Louis Sullivan's Carson,
Pirie, Scott department store (Elia, 1996).
The same effect explains the greater success of streets having partial closure at either end. In
historical cases, streets rarely broaden out into squares directly; the transition is usually
marked by some narrowing structure. This serves as a join between street and square, or
between different sections of street, offering visual information to anyone walking along the
axis. An arch over a street (now unfortunately forbidden by silly rules) is a useful and
powerful boundary for urban space. Ending the street with a façade, as the closing wall of a T
junction, provides axial information (Moughtin, 1992; Moughtin, Oc et al., 1995). The same
principle helps to break up a long street through the use of bends and monuments placed in
round-abouts.
 
Parking lots and strip malls
Many commercial buildings throughout the world allow only car access. Urban space is
replaced by a parking lot, yet people still need to get from their car to the building's door.
Unless one can park right at the building entrance, this involves finding a temporary,
unprotected pedestrian path among parked and moving vehicles. In many parking lots the
car paths are also undefined, creating a chaotic, disorganized, and dangerous system.
Ironically, some recent strip malls do provide spatial information in old-fashioned building
façades (thus satisfying Axiom 1), but violate Axioms 2 and 3. The architectural information is
therefore wasted because it is focussed onto a parking lot instead of a region of urban
space.
We have to totally re-design parking lots to be urban spaces. One idea is to have covered
pedestrian walks protected by a curb from the cars. Now, perversely, we cover the cars and
leave the pedestrians out in the open. The less asphalt and concrete, the fewer the problems
with water runoff when it rains. The ideal is a garden in which there are paving stones for
streets and parking places. Between these, a pedestrian should be able to walk safely,
protected both from the cars and from the elements while being visible from almost every
point. This last problem - affecting personal safety - is what keeps high-rise or subterranean
parking structures from being successful. Intermediate nodes like kiosks inside the parking
lot can solidify the network of paths. The author envisions something like an airport corridor
open on the sides, possibly with newsstands and snack bars.
 
PART C. PRACTICES THAT WEAKEN URBAN SPACE
Open spaces that are not urban spaces
Plazas develop from the amalgamation of a multitude of overlapping pedestrian paths; the
urban space merely shelters and accommodates those existing paths, by providing a
protective edge (Salingaros, 1998). This logic has been turned around in recent years, so that
now we expect (incorrectly) that an open space, sited in any region we choose, will somehow
spontaneously generate the paths that will make it a functioning urban space. Since we have
eliminated the pedestrian paths connecting residential with commercial nodes, open space
will not function as urban space. Some new plazas are entirely in the open, with no buildings
or walls nearby. If they receive no information from the sides, they cannot be urban spaces. A
floor design legible only from the air is totally ineffective.
Copying a working urban space from Europe into a contemporary American downtown
doesn't work. Not only are there no paths or functional pedestrian nodes, but usually, the
surrounding high-rise buildings do not provide the surface information of the old-fashioned
façades in the original. They may look the same on a plan, but all the essential elements are
different. A separate problem is that even if we mimic pieces of traditional façades, but use
materials that minimize the information field, we fail to reproduce the original effect.
Contemporary architectural surfaces are sheer and reflecting, and corners are sharp and
abrupt; by using contemporary building styles, we can mimic the superficial qualities of an
urban space but miss its essence.
 
Proper and improper uses of lawn
Successful green areas are themselves urban spaces: parks and gardens that are partially
surrounded by buildings, walls, hedges, trees, a river, etc. (Alexander, Ishikawa et al., 1977).
According to the second urban space axiom, they must be crossed by footpaths to be used
(Salingaros, 1998). Planted green areas are revitalizing to people if they can actually touch
them, sit in them, and walk through them (Whyte, 1980). Today green areas often serve to fill
up left-over pieces on a plan. Buildings and parking lots leave loose odd-shaped areas that
are made into lawn, which, however, is off limits to pedestrians. This attitude also shapes our
most common contemporary green area - the suburban lawn - which is designed more to be
seen than to be experienced.
Vast ornamental lawns with paths that are too long to be functional tend to become
desolate wastelands (Salingaros, 1998). On the other hand, a private lawn fronting a house is
neither connected to, nor sufficiently isolated from the road. Originally used for sheep and
cow pasture in wet climates, the present version is copied from eighteenth century palatial
estates. Legally - though not visually, or spatially - it belongs to the house, so neighbors will
not step on it. Private front lawns define an ambiguous region without connections or
concave boundaries, requiring regular mowing and maintenance for a purely decorative
symbol of social status.
From the air, a lawn might appear both as a good boundary, and as urban space, but it is
neither. Human beings need vertical boundaries to connect to, yet elements that define
urban space don't show on a plan. A wire fence is the opposite of a solid wall with gaps for
paths, which is an appropriate boundary element for urban space. Trees, hedges, sections of
low wall or a picket fence help to create a private open space by partially closing off the front
lawn from the street. The opposite solution - to include the street into a public open space -
also works. Children often play in the street and across several open front lawns. It is
impossible, however, to define this area as urban space bounded by surrounding houses and
trees, when distances between opposite houses are enormous (Gehl, 1987). Also, traffic flow
must be reduced; either by paving the enclosed road with stones and gravel, or by using
other slowing-down devices (Alexander, Ishikawa et al., 1977; Gehl, 1987).
Pedestrian paths require a building edge to run along (Salingaros, 1998); instead, they are
now pushed as far away from a building as possible, right to the edge of the road. By
distancing the sidewalk from the house front, a lawn prevents the formation of urban space.
A second edge such as a low wall or wooden fence is a poor substitute, but even that is now
outlawed by zoning laws in many residential areas. Suburban commercial areas frequently
contain pieces of two disconnected, parallel paths: one along some of the store fronts, and
another next to the road. This practice splits an already weak path system by interposing
strips of lawn and parking lot. Pieces of decorative lawn that define spaces without paths
violate Axiom 2.
 
Parallels with military architecture
Structures that do not follow the urban space axioms abound in defensive military
architecture up to about the eighteenth century, when the effectiveness of infantry in
attacking fortifications diminished. Buildings present a forbidding, hostile exterior to the
pedestrian, because they communicate a minimum of information. Their intention is precisely
to keep people away, offering the archetype for anti-urban space. Forts and castles are built
with sheer vertical walls; convex towers; spurs; no enclosing structure; small openings;
nothing that can provide a foothold, etc. Defensive buildings close in on themselves as much
as possible, so their general aspect is convex. They are inaccessible to pedestrians. Castles
are surrounded by ditches or moats filled with water; or built on top of steep hills; or even
out into the sea, linked only by a bridge or sea-dyke. By eliminating paths from the
immediate vicinity, this empty outer buffer zone makes it even more difficult to obtain
structural information.
Buildings today, though geometrically isolated, tend not to invite pedestrians to approach
their outside. There may be a plaza, lawn, or sidewalk on the front or sides, but most new
buildings are not designed for people to walk around them. Like fortresses, they use a plaza
as defensive space to isolate and distance themselves from pedestrian paths and nodes. The
original idea was to facilitate car access, but that requirement does not have to discourage
pedestrian contact. Not unrelated to this trend is the ambiguity of the entrance; in many new
buildings it is frequently hard to find, as if the building were guarding itself from intruders
(Greenberg, 1995).
Some contemporary buildings mimic medieval fortifications in the way they use traditional
materials such as brick or stone. Surfaces present no differentiations, visual patterns, or
curves; just blank walls. Concrete is employed in a manner identical to its pioneering use for
20th century military bunkers. We have the example of downtown megastructures with sheer
walls (Paumier, 1988; Whyte, 1980; Wiedenhoeft, 1981). One can go much further using
modern materials to discourage pedestrians: transparent/reflective glass walls offer very little
information to an observer; the same is true of metal surfaces with a mirror finish. High-tech
materials can be combined with an uncompromising geometry to make it impossible for a
pedestrian to relate to the building's surface.
 
Non-euclidean geometry and ideal forms
Urban space is not bounded by buildings having a pure, rectilinear form. If buildings stand
out as isolated cubic or convex abstract volumes, they cannot act as concave surfaces to
define spatial boundaries. The idea of large-scale Platonic solids is fundamentally flawed,
since buildings with a regular shape are not actually perceived that way. Architects
concentrate on creating exact orthogonal corners and straight lines, yet block buildings do
not look straight. Our visual geometry is highly non-Euclidean. The picture we see of our
surroundings is comparable to that through a fish-eye lens of short focal length, in which
there are no straight lines. Photos of rectangular structures have to be taken from afar, using
a perspective-altering lens to straighten edges and make angles appear orthogonal.
Imposing straight edges and pure, flat surfaces on our environment has assumed an
unshakable authority in our times, at the expense of human needs and activities. Today,
when one proposes breaking the geometry of a grid or rectangle, many people feel
something close to terror. There is no logic behind this: it is an emotional reaction resulting
from psychological conditioning. We have been taught that modern civilization depends on
straight lines. Yet, this is a recent idea reinforced by our schooling and media; an obsession
absent from traditional urbanism. It represents an arbitrary style and not a fundamental
pattern. By accepting a value system in which rectangular forms and plans have priority over
both natural and artificial non-rectilinear structures, our civilization cannot create urban
space.
 
Conclusion
This paper proposed that: 1. Successful urban space is bounded by piecewise concave
surfaces; 2. Urban spaces and paths reinforce each other; 3. The core of urban space is
pedestrian. All three points were supported by arguments that relate the use of urban space
to its information field. In a survey of the great historical spaces together with those in
traditional vernacular architectures, urban space is indeed defined by these rules. When we
see what makes an urban space work, we can understand why it can provide a
psychologically nourishing environment. Historical urban spaces optimize the input of visual,
thermal, acoustic, and tactile information to a pedestrian. On the other hand, lack of
information which one needs to define a spatial boundary causes psychological discomfort.
This theory provides criteria with which to judge existing urban spaces, and offers very
concrete steps to repair them. Most important, it can predict the success of structures not
yet built.
 
Acknowledgments
This research is supported in part by a grant from the Alfred P. Sloan foundation. The author
has been privileged to work with Christopher Alexander in editing The Nature of Order,
which inspired many of the concepts discussed here. The author also thanks Michael
Benedikt, Rajendra Boppana, and Lachlan Robertson for useful suggestions.
 
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