2014 - Volume 2.1

EDITORIAL COMMENT

Different approaches in the study of urban form

ARTICLES

A piecemeal world: the Preservation Plan for the Urban Complex of Brasília (PPCUB)
F. Holanda

{+}Abstract [PDF]The Project for the Complementary Law of the Preservation Plan for the Urban Complex of Brasilia is now within the realm of the Legislative Power, Federal District, Brazil. Unfortunately the project does not consider the historical problems of the city: ruptures of the urban tissue, urban voids without functional bioclimatic or expressive reasons, accessibility issues, poor definition of spaces promoting public life, and one of the most perverse socio-spatial stratifications in the world. Decades of critique on modern configurations, which do not consider the ‘space between buildings’, are ignored. More than the projects of the classic period of the modern urbanism (1960s), the recent projects proposethe proliferation of spaces defined by blind walls, of ‘island buildings’ in introverted schemes, and of activities opening to inner spaces and emptying the public realm of transitions between the ‘inside’ and the ‘outside’. Initiatives of the ‘ordinary man’, who reinvents the city through fascinating ‘urban fissures’ in the dominant order, are ignored. Instead of facing the structural problems of the city, thePlan focuses on attributes of urban plots individually, in a ‘legislative storm’ of almost 200 articles and a great number of appendixes. A piecemeal world.

Urban studies and fractal geometry
N. Palma

{+}Abstract [PDF]Conventional methodologies in the study of urban form have not been considering the whole morphological complexity of cities or the degree of irregularity of urban perimeters as they address the physical form of cities within the scope of Euclidean geometry. This paper explores the application of fractal geometry in the study of urban areas, focusing on a number of aspects of physical form related to the fragmentation of urban fabrics, the presence of urban voids and, finally, the existence of selfsimilarity at different scales of observation. This analysis draws on the research work developed by Frankhauser from the 1990s onwards. Fractal analysis is applied to a set of five cities in the Vale do Rio Pardo, Rio Grande do Sul, Brazil. Over the last years, this set of cities had an uncontrolled pattern of growth. The rapid urban development patterns and the expansion of urban perimeters have led to a type of rarefied territorial occupation with major impacts on the urban fabrics of these cities.

Saverio Muratori and the Italian school of planning typology
G. Cataldi, G. L. Maffei e P. Vaccaro

{+}Abstract [PDF]This paper outlines the development of the Muratorian school of urban morphology and building typology. Starting from Muratori’s experience as a talented architect, deeply rooted in the Roman interpretation of Italian rationalism, the authors describe the growth of Muratori’ s interest in history as a means of recovering a sense of continuity in architectural practice. Adopting a theoretical approach grounded in architecture and urban design, he started working on a critical framework which could explain the creation and transformation of urban form over the centuries. He had many followers. The resurgence of interest in Muratori’s work in the 1990s is described.

VIEWPOINTS [PDF]

The origins of urban morphology and the german geography
V. Oliveira e C. Monteiro

Extensions of form
A. Perdicoúlis

The portuguese rua direita: a structuring element or a toponymic designation?
S.M.G. Pinto

Generic grammars for the city and for urban planning
J.N. Beirão

REPORTS [PDF1] [PDF2] [PDF3]

The creation of INTBAU Portugal
R. Florentino

Turkish Network of Urban Morphology
T. Ünlü

Chinese Network of Urban Morphology
W. Ding

BOOK REVIEWS [PDF]

C. D. Coelho (2013) Os elementos urbanos
T. Marat-Mendes

F. de Holanda (2013) 10 mandamentos da arquitetura
V. Oliveira

NEWS

Urban Morphology
ISUF2014: Our common future in Urban Morphology
PNUM2015: Urban configuration and the challenges of urbanity