Urban Morphology
Urban Morphology

Author: Vítor Oliveira

Publisher: Springer

Published: 2016-03-30

Total Pages: 208

ISBN-13: 3319320831

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This is a book about cities or, more precisely, about the physical form of cities. It starts presenting the main elements of urban form – streets, urban blocks, plots and buildings – structuring our cities and the fundamental actors and processes of transformation shaping these elements. It then applies this analytical framework to describe the evolution of cities over history as well as to explain the functioning of contemporary cities. After the initial focus on the ‘object’ (cities) the book describes how different researchers and different schools of thought have been dealing with this object since the emergence of Urban Morphology, as the science of urban form, in the turning to the twentieth century. Finally, the book tries to identify what are the most important (and specific) contributions that Urban Morphology has to offer to contemporary cities, societies and economies.

The Handbook of Urban Morphology
The Handbook of Urban Morphology

Author: Karl Kropf

Publisher: John Wiley & Sons

Published: 2018-04-02

Total Pages: 248

ISBN-13: 1118747690

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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.

The Mathematics of Urban Morphology
The Mathematics of Urban Morphology

Author: Luca D'Acci

Publisher: Springer

Published: 2019-03-23

Total Pages: 556

ISBN-13: 3030123812

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This edited volume provides an essential resource for urban morphology, the study of urban forms and structures, offering a much-needed mathematical perspective. Experts on a variety of mathematical modeling techniques provide new insights into specific aspects of the field, such as street networks, sustainability, and urban growth. The chapters collected here make a clear case for the importance of tools and methods to understand, model, and simulate the formation and evolution of cities. The chapters cover a wide variety of topics in urban morphology, and are conveniently organized by their mathematical principles. The first part covers fractals and focuses on how self-similar structures sort themselves out through competition. This is followed by a section on cellular automata, and includes chapters exploring how they generate fractal forms. Networks are the focus of the third part, which includes street networks and other forms as well. Chapters that examine complexity and its relation to urban structures are in part four.The fifth part introduces a variety of other quantitative models that can be used to study urban morphology. In the book’s final section, a series of multidisciplinary commentaries offers readers new ways of looking at the relationship between mathematics and urban forms. Being the first book on this topic, Mathematics of Urban Morphology will be an invaluable resource for applied mathematicians and anyone studying urban morphology. Additionally, anyone who is interested in cities from the angle of economics, sociology, architecture, or geography will also find it useful. "This book provides a useful perspective on the state of the art with respect to urban morphology in general and mathematics as tools and frames to disentangle the ideas that pervade arguments about form and function in particular. There is much to absorb in the pages that follow and there are many pointers to ways in which these ideas can be linked to related theories of cities, urban design and urban policy analysis as well as new movements such as the role of computation in cities and the idea of the smart city. Much food for thought. Read on, digest, enjoy." From the foreword by Michael Batty

J.W.R. Whitehand and the Historico-geographical Approach to Urban Morphology
J.W.R. Whitehand and the Historico-geographical Approach to Urban Morphology

Author: Vítor Oliveira

Publisher: Springer

Published: 2018-10-09

Total Pages: 152

ISBN-13: 3030006204

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Over recent decades, the historico-geographical approach to urban morphology has been prominent in the debate on the physical form of our cities and on the agents and processes shaping that form over time. With origins in the work of the geographer M.R.G. Conzen, this approach has been systematically developed by researchers in different parts of the world since the 1960s. This book argues that J.W.R. Whitehand structured an innovative and comprehensive school of urban morphological thought grounded in the invaluable basis provided by Conzen. It identifies the development of several dimensions of the concepts of “fringe belt” and “morphological region” and the systematic exploration of the themes of “agents of change,” “comparative studies” and “research and practice” as key contributions by Whitehand to this school of thought. The book presents contributions from leading international experts in the field addressing these major issues.

The Morphology of Urban Landscapes
The Morphology of Urban Landscapes

Author: André Bideau

Publisher: Dietrich Reimer

Published: 2021-09-24

Total Pages: 224

ISBN-13: 9783496016489

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The urban morphology investigates settlement and urban forms. These do not change overnight, but in a process that follows certain principles. There is hardly anything more complex and contradictory than a city. Precisely because of this complexity, there is little agreement on definitions and procedural methods. This applies in particular to urban planning, which is not only concerned with analysis, but also with the design and transformation of cities. A variety of different urban morphological approaches exist today. The authors from the areas of research and practice investigate the relevance of the morphological perspective in the field of contemporary urban landscapes. They link historical roots and current approaches and explain the relationship between analysis and design.

Urban Morphology and Housing Market
Urban Morphology and Housing Market

Author: Yang Xiao

Publisher: Springer

Published: 2016-11-21

Total Pages: 199

ISBN-13: 9811027625

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This book is devoted to fill the ‘urban economics niche’ and conceptualize a framework for valuing the urban configuration via local housing market. Advanced network analysis techniques are employed to capture the centrality features hindered in street layout. The author explores the several effects of urban morphology via housing market over two distinct contexts: UK and China. This work will appeal to a wide readership from scholars and practitioner to policy makers within the fields of real estate analysis, urban and regional studies, urban planning, urban design and economic geography.

Thinking about Urban Form
Thinking about Urban Form

Author: M. R. G. Conzen

Publisher: Peter Lang

Published: 2004

Total Pages: 320

ISBN-13: 9783039102761

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This book explores various ways of identifying and understanding the character of historic townscapes from a systematic and comparative perspective. It outlines several genetic approaches to the study of urban form, grounded in the traditions of geographical analysis but wholly interdisciplinary in their content and implications. It develops a philosophical and methodological basis for the field of urban morphology, stressing the reciprocal relations between town plan, building fabric and land and building utilisation. It views these elements as spatially variable accumulations and selective survivals of forms regulated by shifting patterns of corporate and individual decisions made from one historical period to another - in perpetual tension between resistance and change. Several of the essays in this collection establish and exemplify conceptual principles and axioms of urban morphological development in historic towns, and introduce numerous specific processes by which built forms are created and juxtaposed in urban space. Other essays apply these precepts by interpreting a number of case studies of historic towns in Britain, Germany, Japan, New Zealand and elsewhere. The closing essay offers a unique interpretation of the regional varieties to be found in medieval European urbanism, based on differing traditions of social formation and morphological outcomes.

Cities Made of Boundaries
Cities Made of Boundaries

Author: Benjamin N. Vis

Publisher: UCL Press

Published: 2018-09-17

Total Pages: 419

ISBN-13: 1787351076

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Cities Made of Boundaries presents the theoretical foundation and concepts for a new social scientific urban morphological mapping method, Boundary Line Type (BLT) Mapping. Its vantage is a plea to establish a frame of reference for radically comparative urban studies positioned between geography and archaeology. Based in multidisciplinary social and spatial theory, a critical realist understanding of the boundaries that compose built space is operationalised by a mapping practice utilising Geographical Information Systems (GIS). Benjamin N. Vis gives a precise account of how BLT Mapping can be applied to detailed historical, reconstructed, contemporary, and archaeological urban plans, exemplified by sixteenth to twenty-first century Winchester (UK) and Classic Maya Chunchucmil (Mexico). This account demonstrates how the functional and experiential difference between compact western and tropical dispersed cities can be explored. The methodological development of Cities Made of Boundaries will appeal to readers interested in the comparative social analysis of built environments, and those seeking to expand the evidence-base of design options to structure urban life and development.

Human Aspects of Urban Form
Human Aspects of Urban Form

Author: Amos Rapoport

Publisher: Elsevier

Published: 2016-06-03

Total Pages: 451

ISBN-13: 1483182169

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Human Aspects of Urban Form: Towards a Man—Environment Approach to Urban Form and Design discusses the man—environment interaction in urban setting. The book is comprised six chapters that provide a broad conceptual framework using a range of disciplines. The text first tackles urban design as the organization of space, time, meaning, and communication. The second chapter talks about environmental quality, while the third chapter deals with environmental cognition. Next, the book tackles the importance and nature of environmental perception. Chapter 5 discusses the city in terms of social, cultural, and territorial variables. Chapter 6 details the distinction between associational and perceptual worlds. The book will be of great interest to urban planners and government policymakers. Researchers and practitioners of sociological and behavioral science will also benefit from the book.

Urban Transformation
Urban Transformation

Author: Peter Bosselmann

Publisher: Island Press

Published: 2012-09-26

Total Pages: 337

ISBN-13: 1610911490

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How do cities transform over time? And why do some cities change for the better while others deteriorate? In articulating new ways of viewing urban areas and how they develop over time, Peter Bosselmann offers a stimulating guidebook for students and professionals engaged in urban design, planning, and architecture. By looking through Bosselmann’s eyes (aided by his analysis of numerous color photos and illustrations) readers will learn to “see” cities anew. Bosselmann organizes the book around seven “activities”: comparing, observing, transforming, measuring, defining, modeling, and interpreting. He introduces readers to his way of seeing by comparing satellite-produced “maps” of the world’s twenty largest cities. With Bosselmann’s guidance, we begin to understand the key elements of urban design. Using Copenhagen, Denmark, as an example, he teaches us to observe without prejudice or bias. He demonstrates how cities transform by introducing the idea of “urban morphology” through an examination of more than a century of transformations in downtown Oakland, California. We learn how to measure quality-of-life parameters that are often considered immeasurable, including “vitality,” “livability,” and “belonging.” Utilizing the street grids of San Francisco as examples, Bosselmann explains how to define urban spaces. Modeling, he reveals, is not so much about creating models as it is about bringing others into public, democratic discussions. Finally, we find out how to interpret essential aspects of “life and place” by evaluating aerial images of the San Francisco Bay Area taken in 1962 and those taken forty-three years later. Bosselmann has a unique understanding of cities and how they “work.” His hope is that, with the fresh vision he offers, readers will be empowered to offer inventive new solutions to familiar urban problems.