THE ARCHITECTURAL INTERFACE INSIDE - OUT Interior - exterior relations , spatial models , and configurational mirroring 067

One of the early concepts of space syntax, from the Social Logic of Space, is architecture seen as an interface. This is sometimes interpreted as on one hand a singular transition between ‘private’ and ‘public’, or more gradually as a transition from ‘public’ urban space towards more and more private space on the other. Methodologically, the latter tends to consist of analyses that incorporate both interior and exterior space in the analysis. Similarly, it can be said that justified graphs drawn from the entrance – a commonly deployed practice – is the same kind of description, that is, they describe rather how interior and exterior relates based on the conditions set up by the ‘exterior’. This paper, instead, explores how internal configurational properties sets up an interface description, applying a method of ‘mirroring’ that in certain ways of doing it rather than replacing an exterior in the analysis, emphasizes the internal configuration of the building with regards to its exterior and how it thus describes directionality and priorities of both the building as a whole and of its constitute parts to the surrounding environment. It is thus possible to analyse buildings as interface ‘from the outside in’ – that is, how entry conditions sets up an interface for visitors, a kind of public-private gradient – and ‘from the inside out’ – that is, how the building describes its relation to the various exteriors and to what extent ‘inhabitants’ share similar interfaces and relations as visitors. It further tests these different models to empirical data. The paper explores both a methodology for this kind of analysis and what the results may mean through a series of analysed buildings that makes possible to posit a range of different questions to architectural and configurative analysis.