EDITORIAL COMMENT

What is the utility of urban morphology?

PAPERS

Urban morphology: different approaches
V. Oliveira

{+}Abstract [PDF]This paper presents the origins, main characteristics and fundamental developments of four dominant approaches in the international debate on urban morphology: historico-geographical approach, process typological approach, space syntax and spatial analysis – including cellular automata, agent-based models and fractals. After describing these four approaches, the article synthesizes their fundamental elements; shows how each approach deals with urban form elements, levels resolution and time; and illustrates the potential of each approach with applications in professional planning practice.

Patterns of local streets and corridors in the district of Mooca, São Paulo
A. C. Macedo, M. I. Imbronito

{+}Abstract [PDF]This analysis of the urban fabric of the so-called Mooca district, in the city of São Paulo, Brazil, involves the consideration of streets, street-blocks, plots and buildings taken in isolation, and also of two other composite elements: ‘corridors’ crossing each city sector and corridors within each sector. The corridor is understood as the articulation between the street, the plots on both sides of the street and the buildings erected in these plots. Each corridor contains different information on the urban tissue varying according to the scale of analysis: region, municipality and neighborhood. Each part of the city contained inbetween corridors is a sub-area. The paper offers an analysis of corridors in the formation of traditional residential fabrics.

VIEWPOINTS _[PDF]

Urban morphology and planning legislation
D. Antonucci

Praeter utilitas
M. M. Bandeira

A reflection on the need for and the contribution of urban morphology
A. Fernandes

The FormaUrbis lab and the utility of urban morphological studies
S. P. Fernandes

Urban morphology: aesthetic, social justice and sustainability
E. Mendonça

How to understand cities?
M. M. Gimmler Netto, S. A. Pereira Costa

Urban morphology: for understanding urban transformation
K. S. Meneguetti

What is the utility of urban morphology?
J. M. P. Silva

REPORTS _{[PDF1] [PDF2]}

Portuguese-language Network of Urban Morphology (PNUM): 2015-16
T. Marat-Mendes

5th Conference of the Portuguese-language Network of Urban Morphology, Guimarães, 2015
E. Mendonça

PNUM Workshop, July 2016, Vila Nova de Cerveira: Urban form and transnational dynamics
D. L. Viana

Course ‘Urban morphology. An introduction to the study of the physical form of cities’, Porto, 2016
V. Oliveira

NEWS

Urban Morphology
PNUM 2017: Urban morphology – territory, landscape and planning
ISUF 2017: City and territory in the global era
ISUF Italia 2017: Learning from Rome – historical cities and contemporary design