The Handbook of Urban Morphology

Karl Kropf

• Publisher: Wiley
• Year: 2017
• ISBN:
  9781118747827
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Architecture
• Subtopic: Urban Planning & Landscaping

Conceived as a practical manual of morphological analysis, The Handbook of Urban Morphology focuses on the form, structure and evolution of human settlements – from villages to metropolitan regions.It is the first book in any language focused on specific, up-to-date 'how-to' guidance, with clear summaries of the central concepts, step-by-step instructions for carrying out the analysis, case studies illustrating specific applications and discussion of theoretical underpinnings tied to evidence from the field. Ideal for students as well as professionals and academics dealing with the built environment.

PART 1
Principles

Core Concepts

As a distinct approach to describing, investigating, planning and creating the built environment, urban morphology is characterised by a number of core concepts. It starts with the recognition that the built environment, like language, has its roots in prehistory. Both language and the built environment have co-evolved with humans as a species. Both can therefore be characterised as quasi-natural. The concepts and methods used to probe and investigate the built environment are therefore not sensibly limited to those from only one or the other of the natural or cultural spheres. This is underlined by the often quoted point made by Jane Jacobs, that ‘the city is a problem of organized complexity’.¹ There are regular patterns and an evident order to cities, but they are not simple. The source of the patterns is human action, but not necessarily the deliberate act of creating the pattern. Some patterns emerge as a consequence of a number of individuals acting semi-independently, seeking to achieve other aims.

The notion of pattern is itself one of the most central to urban morphology. In a number of ways, morphology is encapsulated in the idea of patterns of relationship. Whether the product of deliberate, individual design or the semi-coordinated actions of many people over time, the built environment displays a rich array of repeating arrangements or configurations of particular elements: networks of streets, patchworks of plots and combinations of rooms in a building. These repeating patterns are generally recognised as types of form. If the repeating patterns represent one of the principal ways in which the built environment is organised, one of the principal ways in which it is complex is that the types are themselves connected in a pattern: streets incorporate plots, which incorporate buildings. There is a pattern of patterns that extends into a hierarchy of interrelated forms. The patterns also extend in time. Forms are not given but are generated by a process: a sequence or pattern of events. There are thus three main concepts in addition to the general notion of pattern that distinguish the morphological approach to the built environment: process, type and hierarchy.

PROCESS

Forms in the built environment are the product of a sequence of more or less deliberate acts of building undertaken by groups and individual people. The act of building is fundamentally a social and cultural process involving an interaction between individuals or groups of people and their physical environment. The ‘built environment’ can be defined in very broad terms as the transformation of the environment through the application of human energy in the process of building.

Because the process involves humans both responding to and modifying their environment, the interacting parts in the process are interdependent and so most usefully seen not as independent, autonomous entities but distinct aspects of the same ‘thing’. We co-evolve with the environment we create.

CONFIGURATION AND TYPE

The social process of formation is a kind of cultural habit that results in the replication or reproduction of artefacts. Examples are weaving, writing and software development. Artefacts are devised in response to the needs of the group at any given time and reproduced in sufficient numbers to meet those needs. The result is the reproduction of many examples of the same kind of thing. Thus we have many different kinds of fabric, stories and computer applications. The thing that makes any particular object recognisable – and also constitutes the basis for reproduction – is the way it is put together: the weave or pattern of a fabric, the narrative structure and style of the writing; the language, syntax and structure of the application. The reproduction of artefacts using the same pattern or configuration of elements creates a type. To draw a distinction, a configuration is an arrangement of parts and a type is a configuration that has a degree of modularity and integration as a cultural habit. The type is a configuration that is or has been actively reproduced. While each example of a type might be slightly different, the configuration remains the same. The configuration is the set of relationships between the parts that is reproduced and remains consistent irrespective of differences or changes in the specific nature of the individual parts of a particular artefact. A central principle that follows on from recognising types is the concept of homology, which in its most basic form is similarity of configuration and the attendant ability to distinguish similar kinds of part in different examples by their relation to other parts within the configuration. Parts in the same relative position are the same ‘type of part’.

HIERARCHY

The social processes and cultural habits that generate the built environment have been operating for millennia. Over that time, simple elements have been combined to make complex artefacts that have in turn been combined to form still more complex artefacts. Single space shelters have been combined or subdivided to create complex buildings; buildings and enclosures have been combined to form plots; and plots and routes have come together to form streets. The result is not a chaotic lumping together of parts but the emergence of a composite artefact with distinct levels of complexity. The link between the levels is the relationship of part-to-whole, which forms a compositional hierarchy. In simple form the hierarchy includes:

• Streets
• Plots
• Buildings

The result is in effect a pattern of patterns that lies at the heart of the built environment as a form of organised complexity.

URBAN TISSUE

The combination of streets, plots and buildings seen as a composite, multi-level form is commonly and usefully referred to as urban tissue. Urban tissue is the principal constituent or unit of urban growth and transformation. It is the element that is combined to form the larger-scale structure of whole settlements and is composed of the smaller-scale elements that create places and local identity. Urban tissue is an embodiment of the cultural habits that produce it and serves as a reference for coordinating the full range of aspects that constitute urban form.

As will become clear throughout the book, urban tissue and the related concepts of the plan unit and urban character area are a principal focus of analysis. One of the main tasks of urban morphological analysis is to identify the distinct urban tissues that make up a settlement. Already this suggests that settlements are themselves composite forms but at a higher level of complexity than the constituent tissues. In essence, urban morphology seeks to take account of and understand that complexity using the conceptual tools of types, hierarchies and generative and transformative processes.

COMPARISON, SYNTHESIS AND THE COMPOSITE VIEW

A fundamental tool in identifying the patterns, types and processes of urban form is comparison. To a large extent, comparison is at the core of perception and operates at a subconscious level. To find repeating patterns within the plan drawing of a town, for example, we scan it with our eyes and compare one part with another. In essence, we set patterns ‘side by side’ and look for similarities and differences. When we recognise a pattern as an existing type we compare it with the examples we recall from previous experience.

The purpose of the analysis is not, however, simp...

Table of contents

• cover
• Title page
• Copyright
• Dedication
• Acknowledgements
• Introduction
• Part 1 Principles
• Part 2 Methods
• Part 3 Applications
• Conclusion
• Appendix: Sample Field Survey Record Sheet
• Further Reading
• Illustration Credits
• Index
• EULA