A Justified Plan Graph Analysis of the Early Houses (1975-1982) of Glenn Murcutt

The Justified Plan Graph (JPG) technique was developed in the late 1970s and refined in the following two decades as a means of undertaking qualitative and quantitative research into the spatial structure or permeability of buildings. Famously used by Space Syntax researchers to uncover the social logic of architectural types, the technique remains an important, if not widely understood, approach to the analysis of the built environment. This paper uses the JPG method to undertake a three-stage analysis of the early houses of Pritzker Prize winning architect Glenn Murcutt; the stages are visual analysis, mathematical analysis and theoretical analysis. Through this process the paper offers a rare application of the JPG method to multiple works by the same architect and demonstrates the construction of a series of “inequality genotypes”, a partial “statistical genotype” and a partial “statistical archetype” for these houses. Instead of seeking to uncover the social structure of Murcutt’s housing, the paper analyses the architect’s distinctive approach to ordering space within otherwise simple volumes or forms. The ultimate purpose of this analysis is to offer an alternative space-based, rather than form-based, insight into this architect’s work.