ABSTRACT
In this chapter, the author considers the conceptual and applied relationship between environmental embodiment and architectural thinker Bill Hillier's theory of space syntax. Though Maurice Merleau-Ponty only briefly discussed larger-scale actions of the body-subject, one can point to its temporal and environmental versatility as expressed in more complex corporeal movements and ensembles extending over time and space. In regard to effective place-making, space syntax argues for a particular kind of environmental flesh—a deformed grid sustaining integrated pathways along which many habitual bodies meet physically in intercorporeal co-presence and perhaps engage in interpersonal encounter. The author aims to demonstrate a potential conceptual and applied liaison between space syntax and a phenomenology of environmental embodiment, particularly as the latter might be interpreted through Merleau-Ponty. In Merleau-Ponty's terms, we might speak of environmental flesh—the ways that in touching us, qualities of human-made spaces and things allow us to touch, or not, the worlds to which they contribute.
