Space Syntax Analysis of Colonial Houses in India

Abstract

The influence of colonial (British) rule on native (Indian) culture and vice versa has resulted in the development of ‘hybrid’ architectural styles, which are seen in the external ‘form’ of the buildings. The development of a hybrid style is an important phase in the evolution of domestic architecture in India. In this paper we explore whether such hybrid nature is also reflected in the spatial organizations of some colonial houses of eastern India. For this, a suitable methodology was evolved to analyze the spatial organizations. The compositional rules in the generation of spatial layout in these houses are analyzed through the use of space syntax analysis, with some modifications, in order to type them spatially. Typically, space syntax analysis deciphers the spatial organization by the formation of ‘inequality genotypes’, which describe only the integration (and segregation) of spaces as per the access relations. To understand more about the Indian social and cultural norms that might have influenced the spatial organizations of the houses, the accessibility, adjacency, and orientation of the spaces also need to be studied. In this paper we explain the methodology used to generate ‘genotype strings’, incorporate the aforementioned information, and help to understand and document the ingrained social and cultural factors in spatial organizations of the houses more explicitly.