Stan, Holley; Griffiths, Sam; Penn, Alan; (2024) Constraints on the City: How convergent evolution can improve our understanding of urban development. In: Charalambous, Nadia and Psathiti, Chrystalla and Geddes, Ilaria, (eds.) Space Syntax Symposium 14. (pp. pp. 739-763). Tab Edizioni: Nicosia, Cyprus.

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Abstract

Convergence – the phenomenon where the same features develop independently in unrelated systems – is observed to occur in both biological evolution and the construction of human settlements. In biology, different species on separate evolutionary pathways are seen to repeatedly arrive at the same adaptive solutions to functional problems. Likewise, tools for analysing urban morphologies from the field of space syntax have uncovered a set of invariant forms which developing settlements tend towards, independent of cultural similitude. This paper assesses how applicable biological approaches to convergence are to space syntax research by exploring how each field uses the phenomenon to inform theoretical frameworks for understanding their objects of study. Specifically, it is shown that both fields see convergence as evidence for a kind of material logic underlying the autopoietic processes from which cities and organisms emerge. This logic can be interpreted in both cases as a set of constraints that restrict a vast range of morphological possibilities to the limited forms seen in reality. Having established these mutual perspectives, we apply Bill Hillier ’s hypothesis that universal laws of construction govern the morphogenesis of urban invariants to George McGhee ’s more general framework of functional and developmental constraints on evolution. This synthesis is the foundation from which a number of theoretical and analytical approaches to convergence found in evolutionary science are introduced that have potential utility for space syntax ’s research into urban form, demonstrating that convergent evolution as an interdisciplinary concept has multifaceted potential value for generating new knowledge in the study of cities.

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