URBAN FORM DEFINITION IN URBAN PLANNING - SINOPSIS (original) (raw)
Related papers
The “a priori” form of New Urban Configurations
The main trouble for a big city - as a megalopolis - is the disintegration of the traditional Forma Urbis idea and of the urban identity. Even if in the US metropolis is characterized by exasperated serial iteration, made in this way in just 3 centuries, is still possible to recognize the necessary relationship between different territory parts and it’s still clear the dialectic between buildings and countryside, between downtown and periphery, between housing and production area. While in new realities everything is uncontrolled and often reduced to shapeless heap of built up. The concentration of millions of inhabitants, as a result of an extreme process of urbanization producing an amplified confusion of urban spaces, is causing a new and unexpected level of use the area and the downfall of every social equilibrium. This kind of places are ruled by the indifference of the whole hierarchy built and lack an order well-balanced between housing, Tertiary’s sector areas, commercial areas, production areas in all urban space scales possible, as is made in the best tradition of the city (in metropolis too). This space is assuming the paradoxical “a priori shape” aspect and seems in lot of its parts equivalent and homogeneous. New icons of representation, the so-called “containers”, are accidentally put into the city, as effort to ri-polarize it. These are complex urban situations and architectures that seem to evocate today the fast dynamism condition, typical in the new millennium, showing ephemeral dimension and communicate the idea of transparency, lightly and movement. The courses “Typological and Morphological Characters of Architecture ” and “Architectural Design”, in the Department dICAR, Polytechnic in Bari, left to the writer, are focused on the research on the evolutionary process that recalls, generally, the urban complexity and also to spread the necessary knowledge to understanding urban development. Moreover the ways that urban organism shows itself, with its contradictions, considered in a conceptual "shape", are the beginning of the planning thinking. This attitude, especially reported to the complex urban situations, express our capacity of being able to be active in our epoch, through a critical and not parasitic exercise breaking with the past but in continuity with what has been historically transmitted and inherited.
A comparative study of urban form
Urban Morphology, 2015
This paper compares four different approaches to urban morphology: historico-geographical, process typological, space syntax, and spatial analytical. It explores in particular the use of four fundamental concepts proposed in these approaches: morphological region, typological process, spatial configuration, and cell. The four concepts are applied in a traditional gateway area of the city of Porto, Portugal. The area includes considerable variety of urban form. The main purpose is to understand how to combine and co-ordinate these approaches so as to improve the description, explanation and prescription of urban form.
Urban Forms in Planning and Design
International Journal of Research (IJR), 2014
This paper on urban form in planning and design is intended to discuss how the old concepts are changing and new meaning of the urban form is emerging in the planning and development of urban centres. The paper is an attempt to elucidate the basic concepts of the urban forms and how they are perceived at different levels of the planning and design exercises. The paper finally concludes with findings and recommendations which can guide the future course of development of new towns and the growth of the urban centres.
Morphology studies cannot consider urban form without taking into account buildings and open spaces. These two elements are closely connected to physical support and pre-existing environmental dynamics. Therefore we see no sense in breaking them in any studies related to the urban form. This article begins to look at the city and its forms under a rarely used way. The open space becomes the protagonist of the analysis. This approach considers both publicly and privately owned spaces. It evaluate the role of different types of retreats that shape backyards, enclosed yards, parking lots, parks and plazas, etc.. and through which passes part of everyday city life. Despite the natural connection links with others societies in the world like: similar neighborhoods and architectural forms, global urban habits, Brazilian cities hold a peculiar form coming from the specific process of parceling land, urban legislation, cultural habits and formal and informal actions that resulted as the con...
Teaching urban morphology is a task based on scattered ideas, physical examples of past and present cities but very few methods of analysis and evaluation. At an introductory level of an architecture and urban studies course in Brazil, the classic authors are used in the classroom to guide architecture students first steps on the path of understanding and dealing with the complex physical nature and dynamics of our cities. This article describes the effort made to construct diagrams based on classical texts of , aiming to provide the students with basic tools for reading the urban form through Conzen's (1960) three dimensions. The diagrams summarized basic principles of urban morphology, followed by exercises and site activities. The exercises consisted of common drawing over map activities, outlining and hatching recurring features, like the grid, organic, picturesque and monumental style street-systems; or pointing out possible situations for Gordon Cullen's qualities. The site activities were based on visits to Campinas-SP region cities, where students were challenged to use a "see through the classic authors' eyes" approach. Aside for confirming the value of the diagrams as easy learning, stimulating investigation tools and effective reinforcing study material, this teaching experiment highlights the urgent need of developing visual methodological tools for teaching urban morphology and translating the classics into more classroom-friendly procedures.
The Urban Matrix. Towards a Theory on the Parameters of Urban Form and their Interrelation
2009
The present employment seeks to approximate the city as a specific anthropogenic transformation of the biosphere as well as a distinct reflexive human design approach towards the environment – ultimately as "culture and geography's largest artifact, the product of a very complex play of greatly varied forces" (Vance Jr 1990: 4). In short, this statement not only points out the object of research to be covered but also enfolds its quandary: What makes us characterize so diverse entities, such as Rothenburg, Ur and Mexico City, which originated in topographically completely unlike settings at a time difference of well more than 3000 years, with the same term – city (Jansen)? And what allows us to draw one transition line from our contemporary urban forms back to the Bronze Age, in which – to common knowledge – the city has its origins? Exactly for its variety and constant transformation the 'artifact' city is hard to grasp, why most researchers abide by functional aspects for a general understanding and focus formal aspects only in a historical perspective. Still, in addition to the variety of functional assessments there also persists the notion of a formal urban continuum, which appears to be only partly explained by the diverse functional definitions. This present thesis thus shall add to the according manifold functional examinations and ratiocinations, an approach to the city by means of considering the significance of its continuing form and investigating the general factors that determine this form. To this end factors and systemic relations will be elaborated that generally determine urban form, beyond their factual existence and diversity in time and space, an thereby allow for a consistent formal term. The starting point for this contribution to basic urbanistic research constitute two considerations, which both however do not belong to this discipline: The first comprises a phenomenological reasoning, that suggests a differentiation and yet intrinsic relation between factual cities and a theoretical concept that serves as an ideal perception of how a city should be. This ratiocination, which was well established by the art historian Giulio Argan in his "Storia dell'arte come storia della città", forms the basis for the suggested perception of an abstractum urban form that consequently allows for an examination of its constitution and characteristics. The second involves a systemic understanding, that implies a distinct interrelation of various factors that yet erratically afford cities. This ratiocination goes back to the sociologist Niklas Luhmann, and allows explaining the variety as well as the unpredictability of factual urban forms in course of the diversity of opinions and interests involved, while he concurrently insinuates the investigation for conditioning and contingency formulas that determine the process of interrelation. These considerations together constitute as a thought model the Urban Matrix, a dissipative, that is an open dynamic system, in which time and space independent parameters by interrelation cause the origination and development of time and space dependent urban forms. Thence the system itself remains abstract, yet determines the concrete motivations of those participating in the design process and ultimately the very factual formal result 'city'. These thoughts imply that the suggested approach is primarily a theoretical-normative occupation, dealing with abstract concepts rather than the actually built environment. Thus, the reader will be confronted with a search for preferably simple and yet copious wordings that shall explain the features of the different conditioning parameters as well as their interrelation within the Urban Matrix. Still, for the purpose of unambiguousness, this endeavor effects a demonstration of complex circumstances, from which sometimes suffers a convenient readability, as well as familiar expressions have to be put in another context and, where necessary and appropriate, neologisms have to be introduced. Likewise, the argumentation at times has to revert to other disciplines that obviously feature their own language use, which might at first appear to be alien to an urbanistic approach. Of special interest are here the Formal Concept Analysis by Bernhard Ganter und Rudolf Wille, as well as the consierations on Semantics by Gottlob Frege. The key hypothesis for the suggested approach is the differentiation between Quality and Quantity, which in formal concept analysis is expressed by the correlation of Attributes and Objects, and in semantics by the dichotomy of Intension and Extension. In this context urbanistic quantities are bound in time and space, whereas urbanistic qualities allow for an induction of general aspects. These are examined against the background of an idealized urban foundation and eventually summarized to parameters of urban form. Thus, usually only a safe and healthy place is attractive for the establishment of a city; thence safety and health become criteria for the whole urban development, and ultimately refer to a parameter attractiveness'. The key conclusion of the thesis however points to the existence of a conditioning system, which factors can be scientifically determined, when yet it offers no injective, surjective, or bijective relations (Eineindeutigkeit), nor any other mathematical formula that insinuates a calculatory approach towards urban form. With this system a retrospective explanation is possible, a prospective predictability still impossible, comparable with Heinz von Foerster's 'Non trivial machine' (Foerster 1985: 62 ff.). Accordingly, the attractiveness of a city can be explained by its safe and healthy location, but not all attractive cities need to locate at especially healthy and safe places, nor give such places a warranty for future attractiveness and prosperous development. Altogether the thesis consists of four main parts: 1. An introductory Western Reflection of Western Urbanism since the industrialization, which with the development of urbanism as an academic discipline forms the starting point and the scope of an urbanistic basic research – whereas for the lack of a concise field of research this reflection does not represent a classical introduction, but a summarizing intellectual and receptional history followed by the suggestion of another approach and its hermeneutic predicament; 2. The explication of a thought model, which conceptually describes the Causes of Urban Development with its phenomenological and systemic principles and consequently a derivation of abstract factors, whereas this procedure builds the basis for the induction of qualitative parameters of urban form; 3. A Commonsensical Catalogue, which defines the qualitative parameters and their criteria – as well as considerations regarding the establishment of secondary factors within this parametral frameworks; and 4. An Outlook onto the Urban Matrix as an integrating system, which conditions the origination and the development of urban form – whereas firstly the parameters are calibrated with those concepts introduced earlier, secondly the interrelation amongst the different parameters are discussed, and ultimately some rough ideas on possible practical applications are presented. As stated in the subtitle of this elaboration, the suggested thought model does not represent a concluded theory despite its aimed conceptual conclusiveness; on the contrary shall the discussed phenomenological and systemic considerations initiate further theoretical employments in an urbanistic basic research – last not east, to eventually produce a common perception of the city as very own field of research and work, despite the ongoing acceleration of urbanistic processes that aggravates this task (Seifert 2003: 11). Many of those topics discussed in this thesis derive from the author's experiences during his employment at the Department History of Urbanization (RWTH Aachen University); and many impulses stem from discussions with Michael Jansen, which altogether dealt with the in its substance irresolvable question 'What is a city?' Argan, Giulio C.: Storia dell'arte come storia della città, Riuniti, Roma, 1983 (1989, Kunstgeschichte als Stadtgeschichte, Fink, München). Foerster, Heinz v.: Entdecken oder Erfinden. Wie läßt sich das Verstehen verstehen? In: Gumin, Heinz & Heinrich Meier (eds.): Einführung in den Konstruktivismus, pg. 41-88, Oldenbourg, München, 1985 (1992, Piper, München). Frege, Gottlob: Über Sinn und Bedeutung. In: Zeitschrift für Philosophie und philosophische Kritik, vol 100, pg. 25-50, 1892 (Patzig, Günther: Gottlob Frege. Funktion, Begriff, Bedeutung, Fünf logische Studien, pg. 40-65, Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, Göttingen, 1962/75; Frege, Gottlob: Sense and Reference. In: The Philosophical Review, vol. 57, pg. 207-230, 1948). Ganter, Bernhard & Rudolf Wille: Formale Begriffsanalyse. Mathematische Grundlagen, Springer, Berlin (1999, Formal Concept Analysis. Mathematical Foundations, Springer, Berlin / New York) Luhmann, Niklas: Einführung in die Systemtheorie, Carl-Auer, Heidelberg, 1992. Seifert, Jörg: Urban Research: Biopsy and Density, VDG, Weimar, 2003. Vance Jr, James E.: The Continuing City. Urban Morphology in Western Civilization, John Hopkins, Baltimore, 1990.
A Framework for Urban Morphology Regarding to the Form
Armanshahr, 2015
Rapid urban population is widely known as the main inducement of growing cities in terms of quantity and variety in form. However, the city expansion entails physical challenges and it has profound impacts on the issue of urban morphology. It raises global awareness beyond the urbanism and includes sociology, psychology, economics as well as environmental studies due to the implications of broadness. The accentuation on morphological studies is on the grounds of fabric segregation in cities of developing countries where the patterns of modern developments are usually not in good agreement with traditional part. Causing several concerns, it urges morphological studies to attain urban fabric integrity. Therefore, this research aims to study morphology in respect to the form and subsequently proposes a framework of to-be-investigated indices. This study looks for identifying modules and excerpts of traditional core of cities in order to be fostered in future development and to make achievement of physical integration more viable. Having a conceptual-comparative approach, the study unveils the framework consists of urban paths and blocks in details of indices and items. It distinguishes seven indices for paths whereas the blocks have thirteen. Benefiting urban design and planning, setting a framework needs regulation and guideline for future development from morphological point of view and it could be applied for urban regeneration particularly from physical aspect.
Sustainable urbanism and urban form: articulations and perspectives
Periódico Eletrônico Fórum Ambiental da Alta Paulista
Urban space has been a scene of numerous political, social, and technological transformations during the last two centuries. As a result of an intense process of population and territorial growth of cities, urban fabrics around the world are marked by socio-spatial conflicts, which puts them in a particular urban crisis. As an opposing view, the concept of sustainable urbanism arises, resignifying the paradigmatic urban problems. However, it is a concept of complex definition, both theoretical and, mainly, practical. With the problem based on the development of the praxis of sustainable urbanism, this article aims to discuss aspects of urban form that contribute to the applicability of sustainable urbanism. The paper uses an exploratory methodology as to its objectives and follows a bibliographical research model as to its design. Due to the association proposed, the results indicate the combination of the following morphological principles in the city as desirable elements for urba...
Morfologija Objekata U Ulozi Formiranja Urbanog Konteksta
Zbornik radova Građevinskog fakulteta, 2015
Different designing approaches allow visual, morphological, conceptual and coloristic harmonization when it comes to facing existing and newly planned structures in populated areas. The architectural environment is a unique entity in which the objects are interpolated on the principle of taking the characteristic elements from the environment or by using the new forms which achieves focus. Surrounding structures therefore receive different perceptual impressions. Morphological harmonization of newly designed buildings is often of great importance to the visual experience of space, and so a number of urban-architectural parameters such as construction and regulation lines, roof height ranges, the conceptual division of the dimensions of the building, number of floors, etc., are relevant to the question of breeding and raising quality of the urban context. In the case of buildings in Novi Sad, the issue of context in terms of visual perception will be presented and analyzed.
2020
Resumen: Our research group has been working in the last twenty years on the theoretical frameworks involved in the architectural and urban design practices of research on architectural and urban design, and we have produce el lot of publications in different international academic books and magazines (...............) In this article we will start with some considerations about the situation of the morphological classical schools of thoughts until 2000th(Anne Vernez Moudon, 1997). After, we will analyze the theoretical impact of the new digital tools, mainly space syntax, in order to uncover the theoretical innovations by David Kirsh ,Rainer E Zimmermann, David Seamon ,Karl Friston, Jan Gehl, Jonas Langer, Ole Moystad and others. The theoretical confrontation between space syntax and social phenomenology by Bill Hillier himself since 2005 on, will be the best guide for our argumentation and also the work by David Kirsh on social cognition. We will focalize our attention into the si...