The Life and Form of the City: An Interview with Bill Hillier

What are the relations between urban form and social and economic processes in the city? Or more importantly: How can we come to terms with these relations? These questions - fundamental not only for social scientists across the disciplines, but indeed also for architectural theorists - make up the underlying themes of this interview with Bill Hillier, professor of Architectural and Urban Morphology, Bartlett School, University College London. The interview was conducted at his office in the spring of 2008 and the purpose was to discuss Professor Hillier's ideas on space, urbanity and the theory of space syntax put forward in his well-known book Space is the Machine from 1996. The conversation also provides interesting insights into Professor Hillier's thoughts on the relation between the human mind and her material surroundings.