What is urban morphology?

● `Morphology`- is as “the study of form and process, growth and form, form and function”.
● Urban morphology- is the study of the form of human settlements and their formation & transformation.
● Urban form- is the study of the physical characteristics of towns/cities resulting from an evolutionary process of
urban activities and planning action.
● Human settlements- is the totality of the human community whether city, town, or settlements village with all
the social, material, organizational spiritual and cultural element that sustain it.
● 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 structure - its the physical complexity of various scale, from individual building, plots, street-blocks, and
the street pattern. urban texture the geometrical structure formed by the spatial distribution of urban elements
expressed as coarse or fine.

Urban morphology is the study of the form of human settlements and the process of their formation and
transformation. The study seeks to understand the spatial structure and character of a metropolitan area, city, town or
village by examining the patterns of its component parts and the process of its development. This can involve the
analysis of physical structures at different scales as well as patterns of movement, land use, ownership or control and
occupation. Typically, analysis of physical form focuses on street pattern, plot pattern and building pattern, sometimes
referred to collectively as urban grain.
Nature of urban planning during the early British period:
● Urban historians recognize two types of city building process—organic and planned. The planned city
is based on a predetermined grid imposed by a central planning authority. Organic cities were driven by
rules of exigency of people’s lives. They are created vis-à-vis how people use space.
● In India, the major port cities were established by the East India Company.
● In the formation of these cities one can see in the modern times the dominance of the sea route over
land route which was made possible due to innovations in navigation technology. The underlying factor
for building the port cities was commercial advantages in terms of overseas trade.

Organic Planning Planned Planning

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● The three port cities established by the British were Madras (1640), Bombay (1664), Calcutta (1690).
● Unlike the traditional organic cities the planned city had a few new characteristics:
➔ More uniform lay-out within the walls.
➔ Streets intersect at right angle to make communication quicker where roads are winding but quickest way
to reach is from the terraces of the row houses in the different localities.
➔ The roads led to, in the context of colonial cities, to the fixed central space occupied by a building or
symbolic importance.

Madras Bombay Kolkata

DRIVING FORCES
- Need FUNCTIONS
- Expectations
- Demands

FORMATION OF SETTLEMENTS TRANSFORMATION OF

FORM OF SETTLEMENTS
- Resources for housing and
fuel
- natural resources such as
fresh water supply
- reliable food sources
- suitable land for agriculture
- trade areas
- transport corridors
SETTLEMENTS
- the shape and structure
- mode of existence
- design of the settlement
- basic nature
- shaping of the settlement
- Ordering
- Arrangement
- the conception abstract idea aur
mental symbol
- Rapid urbanization
- population growth
- non organised settlement
- primitive organised settlements
- static urban settlements
- Universal City

URBAN METHODOLOGY
Determinants of settlement , form , structure and pattern
Types of LAYOUTS

GRID Urban Planning IRREGULAR Urban Planning

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RADIAL Urban Planning REGULAR Urban Planning
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URBAN FORM
FORM - Refers to the shape and arrangement of human settlement while structure is the way they are organized.

Form may be of:

AS A PRODUCT (state of being) AS A PROCESS(state of becoming)

1. The shape and structure 1. Shaping of the human settlement.

2. Mode of existence 2. Ordering(hierarchy)
3. Design of the human settlement 3. Arrangement
4. Basic nature 4. The conception-abstract
idea/mental symbol

DESCRIPTIVE ASPECTS OF FORM

● Size
● Density
● Grain(coarse or fine)
● Shape
● Pattern
● Focal organization.
EXAMPLE
Chennai

It is the 4th largest Metropolis city in India and Chennai Metropolitan Area (CMA) extends over 1189 sq.km.and comprises of

1. Chennai Corporation
2. 16 Municipalities
3. 20 Town Panchayats and
4. 214 villages covered in 10 Panchayats Unions

The transportation networks, both road and rail,

resemble a radial pattern originating from the core
area of the city. In addition to the radial pattern of
roads, circular corridors like Inner Ring Road (IRR)
serve as interconnections of radial routes
Analysis

Index of accessibility: Villages with high degree of accessibility in terms of road or rail connectivity
have high factor scores.

Index of physical quality and land availability: Villages with good environmental and social conditions
and with availability of land for development have obtained high factor scores.

Index of nearness to workplaces and cheap land availability: Villages with industrial and institutional
activities and where cost of land is low have obtained high factor scores.
Conclusion
● Urban Morphology is not an end-state by itself rather: It has forces against which it acts.
● It's a regulator of function and this the morphology orientation has a set aim to achieve.
● It is one of the important variables as a determinant of the urban pattern, urban form and urban
space components.
● While the urban form and structure consisted of various compositions of physical and spatial
elements,
● Urban morphology inquires these forms and relations between causes and effects of the social
forces within.
● Expects to explode the differentiation of urban morphological approaches in different urban spaces
● It tries to understand the physical or built fabric of urban form and the people and the process
shaping it
● To help predict urban changes that is small scale variations and peculiarities in the urban fabric
example the new infrastructure