Morphological approach

Urban Form: physical characteristics that make up the shape, size, density of built-up areas as a result of social,
cultural, economic, political, environmental and technical processes.

Urban Morphology: study of the form, structure, formation and transformation of human settlements.
A morphological analysis wherein the urban form is understood historically since the aforementioned elements undergo
change, although at different rates (the building/land use being most vulnerable while the street layout being the most
resistant)
(Study As Two Parts : Tangible & Intangible)

Urban morphology is the study of the form of human

settlements and the process of their formation and
transformation
Why do you need morphological study?
To understand the evolution of City over time

What are terms ?

To understand the evolution of City over time
Bangalore

What are the way to get data ?

Archives , story development over period of time from people.
Vadodara is divided into
two physically distinct
eastern and western
regions by the river
Vishwamitri. The eastern
bank of the river houses
the old city, which includes
the old fortified city of
Vadodara. This part of
Vadodara is characterized
by packed bazaars, the
clustered and barricade Pol
system and numerous
places of worship.
Tangible
• perceptible by touch.
• capable of being touched; discernible by the touch; material
or substantial.
• real or actual, rather than imaginary or visionary:
• the tangible benefits of sunshine.

• definite; not vague or elusive:

• no tangible grounds for suspicion.
• (of an asset) having actual physical existence, as real estate or
chattels, and therefore capable of being assigned a value in
monetary terms.

Urban tangibles which provides structure to the city.

1. Base map – Road structure, Building Use, open spaces
2. Road network
3. Land use
4. Building height
5. Building age
6. Figure ground map or built v/s open map
Help in understanding of structure of city by above
mentioned maps
CONCEPTS
1. `Morphology`-is as “the study of form and process, growth and form, form and function”.

2. urban morphology (U.M) -is the study of the form of human settlements and their formation & transformation.

3. urban form-is the study of the physical characteristics of towns/cities resulting from an evolutionary process of urban
activities and planning action.

4. Human settlements-is the totality of the human community whether city, town, or village with all the social, material,
organizational spiritual and cultural element that sustain it.

5. Urban fabric The physical aspect of urbanism, emphasizing building types, thoroughfares, open space, frontages, and
streetscapes but excluding environmental, functional, economic and sociocultural aspects

6. Urban structure... its the physical complexity of various scale, from individual building, plots, street-blocks, and the
street pattern.

7. urban texture the geometrical structure formed by the spatial distribution of urban elements expressed as coarse or
fine.
Urban form
is the physical characteristics that make up built-up areas, including the.
1. shape,
2. size,
3. density and
4. configuration of settlements.
It can be considered at different. scales: from regional, to urban, neighborhood, 'block' and street.
Urban-fabric
The physical aspect of urbanism, emphasizing building types, thoroughfares, open space, frontages, and streetscapes but
excluding environmental, functional, economic and sociocultural aspects.
Urban pattern
The pattern of the city is the way how different functions and elements of the settlement form are distributed and mixed
together spatially. ... He states that patterns are a linguistic system and calls this system 'a pattern language
Urban grain
is essentially a description of the pattern of plots in
an urban block and when this pattern is dominated by
small plots it is described as fine urban grain.

Urban design is relevant to developments, whatever

their nature and size. ...URBAN GRAIN The balance of
open space to built form, and the nature and extent of
subdividing an area into smaller parcels or blocks. For
example a 'fine urban grain' might constitute a network
of small or detailed streetscapes
A figure-ground diagram is a two-dimensional map of an urban space that shows the relationship between built
and unbuilt space.
It is used in analysis of urban design and planning
Figure-ground theory is based on the connection between voids(figure) and solids (ground). How can we
define solids and voids pattern ? And how can we use these relationships in existing pattern?

These define structure of the urban space in the city such as major land Marks, open spaces and buildings.

The best example of the figure-ground theory of urban design is Giambattista Nolli’s Map of Rome.İn Nolli,
Open space is a positive thing that is more figural than solids. İn spite of the modern concept of space. The
open space is characterized like an interier and exterial spaces and with activities.
vcv

vcv
Black – Built
White –Road, anything
open to sky, unbuilt area,
any type of open spaces
such as park, empty land,
play ground etc

Ratio of Built Open

Urban pattern

Urban texture

Urban grain

Figure ground
Built V/S Open ration
Above we see four cities, all at the same scale (one square mile) to allow easy comparison of the pattern, texture, and
grain of the urban form. At the top-left lies densely built midtown Manhattan, with large buildings filling most of the space
between streets. Within this square mile, there are 2,237 building footprints with a median area of 241 m2. At the top-
right, we see the medium-density perimeter blocks of San Francisco’s Richmond district. Here the building footprints line
the streets while leaving the centers of each block open for residents. Within this square mile, there are 5,054 building
footprints with a median area of 142 m2.

The bottom row reveals an entirely different mode of urbanization, by visualizing slums in Monrovia, Liberia and Port-au-
Prince, Haiti. These informal settlements are much finer-grained, and are not structured according to the orderly logic of
the American street grids. Monrovia’s square mile contains 2,543 building footprints with a median area of 127 m2. Port-
au-Prince’s square mile contains an incredible 14,037 building footprints with a median area of just 34 m2. Compared to
New York’s macro-form, the Port-au-Prince informal settlement’s urban fabric resembles a remarkable dusting of
urbanization. Notice, too, the percolation (or lack thereof) of the circulation networks into each informal settlement.

Figure-ground diagrams like these are common tools in urban planning and design to represent the relationship between
built and un-built space in a city.
Figure-ground diagrams like these are
common tools in urban planning and
design to represent the relationship
between built and un-built space in a
city.
 Intangible
• not tangible; incapable of being perceived by the sense of touch, as
incorporeal or immaterial things; impalpable.

• not definite or clear to the mind:

• intangible arguments.
• (of an asset) existing only in connection with something else, as the
goodwill of a business.
Theory of kevin lynch's “the five elements” to read a
city ie..edges, nodes, districts, path & landmark
Association of people with city differs from one to
one
Ex. Mental map class task
representation varies