City, Urban morphology- lecture class

Districts- Areas with perceived internal homogeneity.

A city is composed of component neighborhoods or districts; (its center, midtown, its in-town
residential areas, organized industrial areas, train yards, suburbs, college campuses etc.)
Sometime they are districts in form and extent.

Edges- dividing lines between districts.

The annihilation of a district is its edge. Some districts have no edges at all but gradually
shrink off and intermingle into another district. When two districts are tied at one edge they
shape a closure.
Landmarks - point of reference
"are another type of point-reference, but in this case the observer does not enter within them,
they are external. They are usually a rather simply defined physical object: building, sign,
store, or mountain".

Nodes- centers of attraction that you can enter

A node is a center of activity. Actually it is a type of landmark but is distinguished from a
landmark by virtue of its active function. Where a landmark is a distinct visual object, a node
is a distinct hub of activity. Having identified these elements Lynch describes the skeletal
elements of city form. To build a broader vocabulary upon this basic framework we must
consider other natural and man-made urban form determinants.
Urban morphology
Urban morphological study is a systematic analysis of the evolution of the physical elements
that structure a city. This study allows the researcher to identify important urban structural
elements, and to examine how they fit together and how and why they evolved over time.
According to James E Vance (1990), urban morphology or city form tends to change in
response to the context of city development over time.
Morphological study provides an approach to understanding the physical evolution of the
canal system, which is an essential propelling element of Alappuzha. It also provides an
understanding of the canals' influence on urban settlement patterns in Alappuzha. This
analysis allows the researcher to identify the key structural elements and segments of the
canal system, as well as their historic importance and value for preservation.

Urban spaces
Urban as well as architectural spaces may be conveniently pictured as rooms and corridors of
spaces, or perhaps somewhat abstractly, as channels and reservoirs of space. Urban and
architectural spaces form a hierarchy of spatial types, based on their size. In urban design this
hierarchy ranges from the scale of small, intimate court spaces on to grand urban spaces and
culminating in the vast space of nature in which the city is set. Urban spaces, like
architectural spaces, may be self-contained islands, unrelated to neighboring spaces, or may
be interconnected and best appreciated by moving from one to another. They may be
purposefully designed to display their linkage, to highlight special buildings in the space, or
to suggest an important direction of movement. The advantage of thinking in terms of urban
spaces is that we can embrace a myriad of urban elements as an entity rendering these
elements more distinctive and valuable than they are alone. Attention to urban space can be
extended to the design of a pattern of spaces on a city-wide scale- to the formation of a
network of channels and reservoirs which knit separate districts into a fabric intelligible to its
users. In planning a spatial structure for a city we must be careful to plan intimate and grand
spaces for the purposes they serve. Too many large square and broad avenues may not be
appropriate and can serve a district as easily as they can unify it. For most cities, one major
public square suffices, if there are also many smaller ones to serve less lofty functions. Too
many grand spaces dissipate the sense of occasion they attempt to proclaim. A fundamental
requirement of urban space is actual physical enclosure or its strong articulation by urban
forms. Enclosed urban spaces, like the space in a bowl or a tube, are formed by material
surfaces. But just how much enclosure is necessary? In a plaza we must be sufficiently
enclosed on all sides so that our attention to it as a channel of space.