URBAN DESIGN

TERMINOLOGIES

URBAN DESIGN RESEARCH

IX SEM – 5TH YEAR
URBAN
MORPHOLOGY
 1.URBAN MORPHOLOGY
BANGALORE CITY CENTRE BOMBAY
• The physical form, structure and the
constituent elements of an urban area, along with
those processes which are instrumental in
determining that form.

•It is the form of human settlements and the

process of their formation and transformation.
.(http://www.answers.com/topic/urban- morphology)

Fuxing Island - Shanghai - China

URBAN FORM
2.URBAN FORM
It is the collective three-dimensional expression of an
urban area as represented by the elements of built and open
spaces and their relationship to each other.

It refers to the size, shape, and configuration of an urban

area or its parts. How it will be understood, structured, or
analyzed depends on scale.

Characteristics of the urban form range from, at a very localized

Al Ain Faydah
scale, features such as building materials, facades, and fenestration
to, at a broader scale, housing type, street type, and their spatial
arrangement or layout.

Fuzhou East
The concept of urban form encompasses also nonphysical aspects
such as density (https://link.springer.com/referenceworkentry/10.1007/978-3-319-
71063-1_78-1)
URBAN
STRUCTURE
3. URBAN STRUCTURE:
• It is the underlying basic skeletal system around
which the different parts of an urban area are
bonded together.
• This system comprises of physical, functional, social
and perceptional components, which are
instrumental in determining the nature or character
of the area.
• Urban structure comprises the overall topography and
land division pattern of an urban area.
• It is the pattern and scale of blocks, lots and public
spaces, and the arrangement and scale of the
movement network's streets, roads and paths.
URBAN TISSUE

https://www.behance.net/gallery/2368014/Urban-Tissue-Experiment
MATRI MANDIR FORMING THE IDENTIFIABLE SEGMENT OF THE URBAN VILLAGE OF
AUROVILLE
4. URBAN TISSUE
• It is the smallest identifiable segment of an urban
area possessing and exhibiting functional
homogeneity and cohesive built form.

Urban spaces in new building interventions.

• Urban tissue refers to the
environmental level
normally associated with
urban design.
• Tissue comprises coherent
neighborhood morphology
(open spaces, building) and
functions (human activity).
Squares within consolidated urban tissue. Image: Mario Gallarati
URBAN FABRIC
 5. URBAN FABRIC
• This refers to the manner in which urban tissues,
uniform or diverse in nature are knitted together
with the urban structure to form an entity.

AUROVILLE

urban fabric of Washington

SIZE
 6. SIZE
• Size is the population and physical extent of a city.
(Source: Urban Design: The Architecture of Towns and Cities: Paul, D. Spreiregen p. 64)

AERIAL VIEW - INDORE

SHAPE
 7. SHAPE
• Shape is the physical outline in horizontal
plan form and vertical profile or contour.
(Source: Urban Design: The Architecture of Towns and Cities: Paul, D.
Spreiregen, p. 64)

SHAPE OF JAIPUR SHAPE OF VISHAKAPATINAM

PATTERN
 8. PATTERN
• Pattern is the underlying geometry of city form.
Pattern qualifies size and shape of a city.
• The pattern of the city is the way how different
functions and elements of the settlement form are
distributed and mixed together spatially
(Source: Urban Design: The Architecture of Towns and Cities: Paul, D. Spreiregen, p. 64)
GRAIN

COARSE GRAIN UNEVEN TEXTURE
9. GRAIN
• The balance of open space to built form, and the
nature and extent of subdividing an area into
smaller parcels or blocks.
FINE GRAIN UNEVEN TEXTURE
• For example a 'fine urban grain' might constitute a
network of small or detailed streetscapes.
(Source: Urban Design: The Architecture of Towns and Cities: Paul, D. Spreiregen p. 64)
TEXTURE
 10. TEXTURE
• Texture is the degree of mixture of fine and coarse elements.
It is qualified as being either uniform or uneven.
• Urban texture usually refers to the urban space patterns which
include the urban space structure and the arrangement of its
related factors
CHENNAI – AERIAL VIEW OF ADYAR RIVER SHOWING
(Source: Urban Design: The Architecture of Towns and Cities: Paul, D. Spreriegen, p. 55)
UNEVEN TEXTURE Bangkok, view from Baiyoke Sky Tower

View over Shanghai

 11. DENSITY
• It is the ratio of persons, households, or volume of
building or development to a unit of land area.
• Density is defined in both quantitative and qualitative
ways. Mathematically, it is computed by the number of
persons (population)/ unit area of any urban area, city and
region.
• Unless a city is evenly built – up, studies of density are
best made on separate sectors of a city. Density figures
indicate the relationship between built-up and open land:
therefore they can describe almost graphically the image of
the distinct parts of the city, be it a suburban residential
precinct, or a historic core/center of the city.
AMERICA
(Ssource: Urban Design: The Architecture of Towns and Cities, Paul D. Spreriegen)
 12. IMAGEABILITY
• It is that quality in a physical object which gives it a
high probability of evoking a strong image in any
given observer.
• It is that shape, color, or arrangement which facilitates
the making of vividly identified, powerfully structured
highly useful mental images of the environment.
• (Source: The Image of the City, Kevin Lynch; Page 9)

"Duomo".
"Campanile" (or bell tower) of the
Looking towards Casa Loma up rear lane
between Walmer Rd and Spadina Rd

Rhythmic fronts in some historical

 13. PATHS
• Paths are the channels along which the observer customarily, occasionally, or
potentially moves. They may be streets, walkways, transit lines, canals,
railroads.
• People observe the city while moving through it, and along these paths the
MARINE DRIVE AT BOMBAY MOUNT ROAD AT CHENNAI
other environmental images are arranged and related.
• These are the major and minor routes of circulation which people use to move
about. A city has a network of major routes and a neighborhood network of
minor routes. A building has several main routes which people use to get to
BEACH ROAD
AT VISHAKAPATINAM and from.
(Source: Urban Design: The Architecture of Towns and Cities Paul Spreiregen)

France

WALLED CITY OF SHAHJAHANABAD
GEMINI FLYOVER - CHENNAI
Tree-lined street at Rice
University, Houston
14. EDGES
• Edges are the boundaries between two districts/ precincts, and are
usually linear breaks in continuity: shores, railroad cuts, edges of
development, and walls. Edges may be barriers,
• more or less penetrable, which close one region off from the other; or
they may be seams, lines along with two regions are related and joined
together.
• (Source: The Image of the city: Kevin Lynch; p. 47)
Wilkins Ave, off King St E, east of Parliament
CENTRAL
DELHI
15. DISTRICT
Districts are the medium to large sections
of
the city conceived of as having two
dimensional extent, which the observer
mentally enters "inside of" and which are
recognizable as having some common,
identifying characteristics.
(Source: The Image of the City; Kevin Lynch; p. 47)
EAST DELHI
 16. NODES
A node is center of activity. It is a type of landmark by
virtue of its active function. Where a landmark is a distinct
visual object, a node is a distinct hub of activity. Nodes are
points, the strategic spots in a city into which an observer can
enter, and which are the intensive foci to and from which he is
travelling. They may be primarily junctions, places of a break
in transportation, a crossing or convergence of paths,
moments of shift from one structure to another. Or the nodes
may be simply concentrations, which gain their importance
from being the condensation of some use of physical
CONNAUGHT PLACE
character, as a street -corner hangout or an enclosed square.
(Source: The Image of the City, Kevin Lynch, p. 47)

Ark-e Karim Khan_Satellite map_Shiraz_Iran

 17. LANDMARKS
• Landmarks are another type of point-
references, but in this case the
observer does not enter within them,
they are external.
CENTRAL LIBRARY OF BHOPAL STRUCTURE AT MARINA BEACH

• They are usually a rather simply

defined physical object: building, sign,
store, or mountain.

• Their use involves the singling out of

an element from a host of possibilities.
• (Source: The Image of the City, Kevin
Lynch; p. 48)
IIM, AHMEDABAD
18. CONTINUITY
•It is the continuation of an edge or surface (as in a
street, channel, skyline or setback), nearness of parts
(as a cluster of buildings), repetition of rhythmic
interval (as a street - corner pattern), similarity,
analogy, or harmony of surface, form, or use (as in a
common building material, repetitive pattern of bay
windows, similarity of market activity, use of common
KERALA
signs).
MUMBAI •These are the qualities that facilitate the perception of a
complex physical reality as one or as inter-related,
qualities which suggest the bestowing of single identity.
(Source: The Image of the city, Kevin Lynch; p 106)

•Continuity is provided by a series of coherent parts.

The parts may be related by keeping a common scale,
form, texture, or color for a space, or area. (Source: Central
City Malls;H.M. Rubenstein, p. 24)
 19. SEQUENCE
Sequence is continuity in the perception of space
or objects arranged to provide a succession of
visual change.

It may create motion, or mood, or give direction.

(Source: Central City Malls;
H.M. Rubenstein. Page. 30)

The main entrance to the public space

 20. LEGIBILITY
It is the degree to which the components of a
settlement are discernible as a coherent urban
form.
DHARAVI SETTLEMENT OOTY – HILL STATION

'the ease with which its parts can be recognised

and can be organised into a coherent pattern’

Legibility means the possibility of organizing an

environment within an imageable and coherent
pattern.

(Source: Good City Form; Kevin Lynch. pp.

139-140)
 21. STREET
• It is an enclosed linear space used for
access, movement and activities and
delineated by natural or built elements
CARNIVAL ON GOAN STREETS STREET IN PONDICHERRY or a combination of both.

STREET IN FRONT OF BOMBAY

MUNICIPAL CORPORATION
 22. STREETSCAPE
RANGANATHAN STREET - STREET LEADING TO CHAR-
CHENNAI MINAR

• This refers to the collective

expression of physical elements,
functional or aesthetic in nature that
articulate and/or delineate a street.
 23. RESTRUCTURING
• This refers to the development process applied to alter the
existing structure of an area for improved functional

efficiency and/or image.

• The restructuring process (may not necessarily demand
extensive interventions to alter the structure, but generally

BEFORE KATHIPARA JUNCTION AFTER

involves sensitive relocation of uses and reorientation of
functional networks within and outside the area.

Restructuring Shanty Towns

 24. URBAN REDEVELOPMENT
• The need to revive deteriorating business districts and
residential areas in many cities gave rise to the concept of
urban redevelopment as a development process.

• The idea of this process was to wipe a site clean and to begin
again with a new and better urban pattern. Originally conceived
under the Housing Act of 1949 in U.S.A., this process
unfortunately failed in many cities as the program was either
never accomplished or resulted in sterile environments.
DHARAVI SLUM REDEVELOPMENT
Highway project
(Japan Highway
Public
Corporation)
Higashi Kanto
Expressway,
Wangan-
Narashino
Interchange ~
Wangan-Chiba
Interchange
(Chiba)
 25. URBAN RENEWAL
This process enlarged the concept of urban redevelopment to
include rehabilitation, conservation and other BLIGHT-
PREVENTING objectives as additional measures to upgrade
environmentally degraded or economically run - down
business districts or residential areas.

First conceived under the Housing Act of 1954 in the U.S.A.

the urban renewal process involved phased action over a
period of time incorporating a combination of various
FLYOVERS AND BRIDGES MADE AS A PART
OF URBAN RENEWAL development strategies such as restructuring, redevelopment,
conservation, etc., thus providing a comprehensive program
PAVEMENTS BEING LAID
for renewing cities

A past and present comparison of Melbourne Docklands urban renewal. A huge area of old disused shipping docks is
being transformed into a residential, commercial and office development.
 26. URBANISM
Is the essential quality that renders
an area urbane and is a derivative
of the place specific nature of that
urban area. It is a collective
expression of the social, cultural,
AHMEDABAD INTERNATIONAL AIRPORT economic and aesthetic
determinants involved in the

Behavioral Urbanism MUMBAI SKYLINE production of a place.

A view of downtown Market Street.
View along street in street in Prospect New
Town, new urbanist development in
Longmont, Colorado

Grande Market Square"

cornerstone building on
Nicollet Ave and Burnsville
Parkway
 27.URBANIZATION
Is the quantitative increase in the urban
areas of a region/country. Urbanization is not
the increase in the urban population of a
place but the increase in the spread of
GROWING RANCHI : URBAN GROWTH AND CHANGES areas defined as urban based on

ACROPOLIS APARTMENTS
country specific parameters.
IN BANGALORE
Urbanization is not always attributed to high
density. In Manila, the cost of living has forced
residents to live in low quality slums and shanty
towns

The expanding Los Angeles metropolitan areais The City of Chicago, Illinois is an example of the
an early example of uncontrolled urbanization early American grid system of development. The
grid is enforced even on uneven topography.
 28. TYPOLOGY
Is the study and classification of buildings and
urban spaces according to some common
characteristic: plan configuration, use, form,
material, style, location, meaning, idea and so
on.
(Source: Jon Lang, Urban Design – The
BOMBAY HOUSING TYPE IN KERALA
American Experience, p.141)
 29. CONTEXT
AREA SURROUNDING JAMA MASJID HAUZ KHAS AND AREA SURROUNDING

The sum total of all the forces/

conditions- social, economic,
political and physical/ built that
define and describe a place.
 30. GROWTH
A quantitative increase in purely the
dimensions of particular phenomena,
for example of population, suburban
areas, economy, etc.

Greater Vancouver Regional District

Las Vegas from '73 to '92
 31. DEVELOPMENT
An increase in phenomena
necessarily signifying an
improvement in qualitative
terms.
AIRPORT AT ARIPERUMBUDUR, TAMIL NADU BOMBAY
 32. CHARACTER
Sign or any distinctive mark: essential
feature; sum total of qualities making an
individual entity. (Source: Webster’s Dictionary).

BOMBAY LADHAK