Subjectivity and Objectivity in Urban Knowledge Representation

The question of subjectivity and objectivity of information is an important open issue in the knowledge engi- neering research community. In the context of space representation, they have been traditionally considered competing themes in the study of places, particularly in urban ones. This is highlighted by the distance, in terms of cultural training and operational approach, between the professionals of the city: urban planners and urban anthropologists. The growth in modeling capabilities allows a quantitative study of a city but in- formation about the meanings of space elements are often not taken into account. Starting from this basic assumption, our paper aim is to give a novel point of view to integrate subjectivity and objectivity in an oper- ational model. Space Syntax, as a theory and a methodology, is used as a tool to study the objectivity of the urban space. Ontologies, as an approach and a method to formally represent knowledge, is used to provide Space Syntax with the subjectivity of the same spaces.