Dialogue on space: Spacial codes and language of space

Design is a sophisticated cognitive activity that has space at its core. Design begins through the gaining of an understanding of the living culture, potentials, constraints, and variables of the space. To do this, architects must acquire a perception of the architectural space by decoding the characteristics of its social culture and discovering the messages revealed via its built form. In this way an architect enriches his or her understanding and forms personal knowledge of the space in question. Critical questions arise at this point: How do architects understand and decode space? How do architects perceive and conceptualize space? How do architects express meaning in space? How do they think and talk about space? The intent of this paper is to reveal the output of discussions on these essential questions with the students in the first lecture of an undergraduate elective course, Architectural Morphology that was given at Istanbul Technical University, Faculty of Architecture. The course asked students to describe and talk about their living spaces so as to record their mental processes and clarify the characteristic elements of language they use to talk about space. The last part of this paper contributes to the creation of a scientific, analytical tool, space syntax, to form a language for thinking and talking about space.