A configurational theory of architecture: the lifework of Bill Hillier (1937-2019)

摘要

The great breakthroughs in scientific knowledge are accomplished by individual men and women, not by groups of people or organizations. From time to time, someone comes along who is able to see the problem from an entirely new angle, suddenly turning it into something logical and graspable. Thomas Kuhn (1962) called these epis-temological events 'paradigm shifts' - enlighted moments during which 'extraordinary science' is produced and our understanding of the world greatly expands. Sometimes it is the foundations of an entire scientific field that are laid. Biology, for example, could hardly be deemed a science before Charles Darwin. He endowed it with its fundamental principle (natural selection), definitely rooting the discipline into logic and fertile ground. It is my belief that Bill Hillier has done the same for architectural theory and, indeed, for all the social sciences, insofar as they address the relationship between society and the built environment. In this Viewpoint I will set out the reasons why I think Bill stands among those men and women who have unveiled entire new sections of reality, by providing consent answers to some of its endless riddles.