MORPHOLOGICAL INVESTIGATIONS: CUTTING INTO THE SUBSTANCE OF URBAN FORM

Morphological Investigations:
Cutting into the Substance
of Urban Form
KARL KROPF

This paper presents a survey of recent applications of urban morphology in the

practice of urban design, conservation and planning. The aim of the survey is to
illustrate how the tools of urban morphology, in particular the idea of urban tissue
as a key, coordinating point of reference, can provide an essential foundation for
understanding the structure and complexity of the built environment as well as for
creating, transforming and managing it. Along the way, analogies are drawn with
anatomy, surgery and craftsmanship to highlight the fact that skill in practice depends
on an articulated and comprehensive understanding of the material with which you
are working. The paper ends by concluding that such analogies in themselves are not
a substitute for the detailed knowledge of the substance and structure of urban form
provided by urban morphology, particularly if our aim is to plan and design a better
built environment.

In a special issue of Architecture Today, noted
architect Sir Richard Rogers said:
A major development in the last 20 years is a
much greater consciousness of the morphology
of cities – that buildings need to fit in, and even
if they contrast, you have to be conscious of what
they contrast with. (Rogers, 2009, p. 34)
This quotation is noteworthy, particularly
coming from Richard Rogers, because of his
unapologetic use of the phrase ‘morphology
of cities’. Within the pragmatic and generally
anti-intellectual world of anglophone archi-
tectural and urban design practice, urban mor-
phology has been considered an interesting
but ‘academic’ subject.1
Taking a closer look at recent activity in
a number of areas does, however, suggest
urban morphology is welcomed and used
more widely than views might suggest. Even
if people avoid explicit use of the termin-
ology (or do not know it) there is a significant
amount of work being done that applies and
extends the methods of urban morphology.
One of the principal aims of this paper is
to give a brief survey of some of that work
and provide a sense of where things are
headed. What is striking is the diversity of
the directions in which urban morphology
is being taken: from historic conservation
and urban characterization to analysis of
movement and environmental performance
as well as development control and the craft
of urban design. And while urban design is
only one of the directions, to a large extent
all the others are entwined with it. Each of
the different directions is an investigation
that can inform the practice of urban design,
town planning and architecture.
In parallel with the aim of providing
a survey of recent urban morphological
investigations, this paper takes the different
applications as a prompt to explore the
unrealized potential of urban morphology
to fit more actively into the practice of urban

BUILT  ENVIRONMENT   VOL  37   NO  4 393
 URBAN MORPHOLOGY AND DESIGN
design. In this regard it is difficult not to
pursue a number of analogies.
Taking up a reference to the work of
Walter Benjamin (2008 [1936]) suggests the
obvious comparisons with biological mor-
phology and anatomy: cutting open a town
to see what it is made of and how it goes
together as a necessary foundation for suc-
cessful ‘interventions’. The idea is drawn
out and extended to connect, by way of
Kevin Lynch, with the idea of craftsmanship
as explored by Richard Sennett in his
recent book The Craftsman (2009). Sennett’s
reflections make one pause to ask whether
urban design practice as it stands embodies
the ideals of craftsmanship, not in the facile
distinction between art and craft but in terms
of command of a medium. Do we fully
understand the intricacies and substance of
urban form as a material to be shaped? Are
we making the most of its characteristics? To
begin to answer these questions the paper
looks at a number of examples of urban
morphological methods applied directly to
planning and urban design practice.
What is Urban Morphology Anyway?
If urban morphology is currently operating
under cover, as it were, how would you
recognize it if you saw it? There are three
main distinguishing features. The first is the
understanding that form is the result of a
process. Forms are not given but generated.
More specifically, the process of formation,
which is to say, the sequence of more or less
deliberate acts undertaken by groups and
individual people, is fundamentally a social
and cultural process.
The second is the idea of type or con-
figuration. The process of formation generates
many examples of the same kind of thing.
A street or building is a generic type of form
defined by a common set of characteristics.
The principal common characteristic that
defines generic types is the relative position
or ‘configuration’ of its parts. A street is
a route with buildings either side and a
394
building is an arrangement of rooms with
external walls and a roof. A particular town
has its own identity because it is made up of
many examples of different specific types of
street, plot and building.
The third core idea is that the generic
types of form are related to each other in a
hierarchy of levels of scale, which in simple
form includes:
 street patterns
 plot patterns
 building patterns.
Plot patterns nest within street patterns and
building patterns nest within plot patterns.
An individual street, taken as a whole,
contains plots and plots contain buildings.
The combination of these patterns is often
referred to as urban grain. One of the most
recognizable expressions of the hierarchy is
a series of plans illustrating an urban area at
different levels of resolution corresponding to
the main elements (figure 1). Such drawings
are, however, only a means to an end in
demonstrating the principle of the hierarchy.
The main product of basic morphological
analysis is the plan unit or urban tissue, an
area made up of a distinct combination of
specific types of street, plot and building
(figures 2–5).
Characterization
Another name used for a plan unit or tissue
is character area, which points to one of
the most common forms of morphological
analysis, which is characterization, most often
undertaken as part of conservation area
appraisals. The general aim of characteriza-
tion is to identify areas of distinct character
within a settlement.
Current guidance from English Heritage on
Conservation Area Appraisals (2006) sets out
a very general process of characterization and
in fact explicitly uses the term ‘morphology’.
The aim of the process is to set out in detail
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Figure 1. Plan diagrams showing a selected
area at different levels of resolution and a table
setting out the hierarchy of elements. (Source: Base
mapping Crown copyright Ordnance Survey. All
rights reserved)
The table highlights the different types of ‘spaces’,
and their interrelationship with the other elements.
the features and characteristics that define the
special character of the area and determine
if it has distinct parts with different
characteristics.
A very good example of this work is
the suite of appraisals done for Norwich
City Council (2007). Identifying character
areas provides a sound and objective basis
for going on to make further judgements
about the value and significance of the
different areas. Together the characterization
and evaluation serve as a foundation for
conservation and development management.
Rather than just an area ‘the character
or appearance of which it is desirable to
preserve or enhance’, characterization sets
out in detail the particular characteristics
of each area or sub-area – its component
parts, structure, function and origins. This
information then makes it possible to be more
specific in judging what is most important to
BUILT  ENVIRONMENT   VOL  37   NO  4
the character and whether proposals for new
development will preserve or enhance it.
The English Heritage guidance on con-
servation area appraisals makes passing
reference to the term ‘morphology’ and uses
the general concepts and methods of urban
morphology. There is, however, a wealth
of research that has been undertaken in the
UK and elsewhere over the last century that
could be more actively used. A picture of that
work can be found in a series of articles with
the general title, ‘The study of urban form in
[country]’ that has appeared over the last 12
years in the journal Urban Morphology (see
also Whitehand, 1981). What is clear from
looking at both historic and current work
is that the roots and threads of the different
approaches intertwine in many places.
Characterization, for example, has roots
in geography that extend back into the
mid-nineteenth to early twentieth century
395
 URBAN MORPHOLOGY AND DESIGN
with the work of von Humbolt (1850),
Schluter (1906) and Sauer (1925). More
recently it has been taken up within the
field of landscape architecture in the form of
landscape character assessment (Countryside
Commission, 1991; Swanwick and Land Use
Consultants, 2002) and historic landscape
characterization (Homes and Communities
Agency and English Heritage, 2009). The
latter overlaps with the field of archaeology
and the historic environment where there
has been significant recent activity by both
archaeologists and historic conservation
officers.
An increasing number of historic urban
characterizations has been undertaken by
archaeological units of local authorities in the
396
Figure 2. Character areas
in Norwich city centre from
the Norwich City Centre
Conservation Area Appraisal.
The appraisal also includes
plans of topography, open
spaces, historical development,
current and former land uses
and landmarks. (Source: Base
mapping Crown copyright
Ordnance Survey. All rights
reserved)
UK. These can supplement characterizations
done for conservation areas, providing more
detailed research into the historical roots
of the current character of towns. A fine
example of this type is the study of Hereford
by Nigel Baker for the Herefordshire
Archaeological Unit (Baker, 2009). In the case
of both characterization for conservation area
appraisals and historic characterizations, a
principal output of the studies is a map of
character areas and written descriptions
of the features and characteristics that
define them. In most cases there is a more
or less explicit reference to the hierarchy of
elements, each area being defined broadly by
a common, combined pattern of streets, plots
and buildings.
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Figure 3. An initial

morphological analysis of
the street and plot pattern
of central Hereford (above),
showing the distinct Anglo-
Saxon core to the south and
the Norman extension and
(opposite) the character areas of
contemporary central Hereford.
(Source: Base mapping Crown
copyright Ordnance Survey. All
rights reserved)

There is also a clear emphasis on the
process of historical development. A common
component of these studies is map regression
or comparative chronological analysis, which
is a fundamental tool in urban morphological
analysis. The sequence of available historic
maps and plans (i.e. any plan older than
the most current) is collected, reproduced
at the same scale and compared visually
(or digitally processed), ideally with the
aid of transparent overlays. The method
facilitates identifying both the growth of the
settlement (changes in extent) and internal
transformations such as the modification
of street or plot patterns and the extension,
replacement or demolition of buildings. Map

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 URBAN MORPHOLOGY AND DESIGN
regression also helps to identify character
areas because each area of growth in its turn
will have been designed according to the
structures, types and styles of its time. Each
period leaves its own distinct forms (Caniggia
and Maffei, 2001, pp. 59–60; Conzen, 1969, p.
6), and, as clearly shown by architectural and
urban history, styles and structures change
progressively over time.
The Problematics of the Historic
The chronology of characteristic forms
that has been established by the work of
archaeologists and urban and architectural
historians is thus a fundamental adjunct of
urban morphological analysis. What the
record shows is a history of near constant
change. Once built, people are forever
tinkering with their towns – or rebuilding
them.
Urban morphology sidesteps the apparent
paradox of constant change by articulating
the different levels of scale and putting
the physical structure into the context
of a cultural process. It helps us to see
how the different elements work together
and, perhaps most importantly, to see the
emerging balance between continuity and
change. Some parts change and others
stay the same. It is that balance that is
crucial to any notion of managing the built
environment seen as a heritage asset. But
there remains a conundrum when we see
the historic fabric of a town as the principal
record of both accumulated knowledge and
a process of changing fashions.
The conundrum lies in the fact that the
process progressively erases the record
of itself. It is the equivalent of a painter
only ever using one canvas or a writer one
notebook. The evidence we want to save is
destroyed by the thing that produces the
evidence. On an abstract, metaphorical level,
settlements eat themselves to survive.
For the planner and urban designer, the
articulated view of urban morphology offers
a way to see each step in the process – in
398
particular the step we are in now – not as
a blunt confrontation between the past and
the future. Rather, urban morphology should
challenge the whole world view that sees any
definitive break between past and future. The
fabric of a town extends through time and
the designers, the agents of change, only
select out a few of the strands and weave
new strands into them, necessarily relying
on the strength of the whole to support what
is added.
As much as anything, this shows the limits
of a purely historical interpretation of urban
structure. Clearly the built environment does
not have value only as an historical record.
First and foremost, it is our habitat. The built
environment is an essential part of day-to-day
life. It remains in constant use and is subject
to an ongoing process of modification to meet
changing needs and changing design ideas. It
has social and economic value, and it is social
and economic needs that drive the creation
and transformation of settlements in the first
place. And it is the role of urban designers
(all the built environment professions) to
ensure that the built environment serves
those needs. It is the designers who face most
directly the competing values.
Opening Out the Perspective
The cultural critic Walter Benjamin grappled
with this sort of issue using the example of
painting and cinema. For Benjamin, cinema
offers a way out of the limitations and loss
of meaning faced by painting in the wake
of mass reproduction. To draw a distinction
between cinema and painting, he makes an
analogy with surgery and magic:
The magician and surgeon behave respectively
like the painter and the operator. The painter
keeps, in his work, a natural distance from what
he is given, while the operator penetrates deeply
into the texture of the data. (Walter Benjamin,
quoted Tafuri, 1976, p. 31)
Seeing the built environment only in
terms of its historical value, depicting its
character only on the picture plane of the
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past is to take the position of the painter. The Social Dimension

The result may have the effect of perspective
but it is fundamentally limited in its ability Recent studies used in the preparation of
to see other dimensions. It cannot penetrate local development frameworks in the UK
into the issues driving people’s day-to-day pick up on this wider range and directly
lives and, more importantly, driving the associate it with urban tissue/character areas.
organizations and institutions with the power An example is the Urban Character Study
and resources to carry out the changes to the for Brighton and Hove by Eline Hansen
built environment that will only later become and Gill Thompson (2009) (figure 4). The
part of the historical record.2
An approach that acknowledges that
there are multiple aspects and values and
considers a given value in the context of the
others would at least provide a better tool
for the designer, even if it might not avoid
difficult choices altogether. This is essentially
the approach taken by Kevin Lynch, writing
from the perspective of the designer, in Good
City Form where he defines ‘urban form’ as:
The spatial arrangement of persons doing things,
the resulting spatial flows of persons, goods and
information, and the physical features which
modify space in some way significant to those
actions, including enclosures, surfaces, channels,
ambiences and objects. Further, the descriptions
must include the cyclical and secular changes in
those spatial distributions, the control of space,
and the perception of it. (Lynch, 1981, p. 48)

This quotation points to one of the roots of

urban morphology in the Chicago School
and the work of Burgess (Park et al., 1925)
and Hoyt (1939) on urban sociology, which
itself has precursors in the likes of Engels’s
study of Manchester. To summarize, Lynch’s
definition identifies a number of different
aspects to urban form:

 Topography, natural features

 Built form
 Uses, activities and movement
 Control
 Perceptual/qualitative aspects
 Flows of energy and materials
 Development and evolution Figure 4. Diagrams of the Hanover Elm Grove
neighbourhood in Brighton showing land use and
character areas.

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 URBAN MORPHOLOGY AND DESIGN
study starts with the identification of areas
as neighbourhoods defined on the basis of
residents’ perceptions of how they use the
parts of the town in which they live, amongst
other factors. The ‘neighbourhoods’ are
effectively defined by both the activities and
the physical characteristics of the place. The
study makes the combination of physical and
social aspects more explicit by correlating
census data with each of the physical areas.
The benefit of combining different kinds
of information is that it provides greater
insights into what kinds of interventions
might be most appropriate to deal with social
issues. Using urban tissue as a basis for the
judgements provides a common frame of
reference for dealing with different areas.
Environmental Performance
A similar approach that takes urban tissue
as a point of reference is the work of Paul
Osmond (2010). Under the broad heading
of sustainability, Osmond uses urban tissue
400
or what he terms the urban structural unit
(USU) as a basis for assessing the environ-
mental performance of different types of
urban form (figure 5). There are three im-
portant underlying premises to the work.
One is that different types of urban form
are likely to perform differently. The second
is that if an area is consistent in form, one
part of the area is likely to perform in the
same way as other parts (justifying sampling
– taking into account larger scale effects
such as topography or proximity to bodies
of water). The third is that urban tissue or
the USU provides an explicit definition
of the area. Osmond looks at a number of
different factors that can be used to assess the
performance of an Urban Structural Unit as a
measure of sustainability:
 Material stocks and flows
 Microclimate
 Ecosystem services
 Configurational analysis
Figure 5. Drawings of the
University of New South
Wales Kensington Campus
Urban Structural Unit
showing (above) the principal
components and (below) an
analysis of the Predicted
Mean Vote, a measure of
thermal comfort.
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A number of these are calculated or as abstract configurations in order to under-

assessed using software that has a graphic
output that can be overlain on a plan of the
USU. As in the case of the Brighton and Hove
study, physical form serves as a reference
aspect for coordinating a wider range of
information. Combining the ‘rectified’ data
gives us a richer and more accurate under-
standing of the characteristics of the form
and, more importantly, its characteristics
in use. The combined information in turn
provides a sound basis for targeting inter-
ventions more accurately and making judge-
ments about which forms will be most
appropriate in particular circumstances.
Morphology and Movement
The aspect of movement included by Osmond
(2010) is itself a focus of morphological
investigation. Bill Hillier has for many years
taken a morphological view of street patterns
stand their inherent properties and their
effects on movement. Hillier’s (1996) approach
is distinctly morphological because it takes
as a starting point the relative positions of
the parts within the network as a whole,
making assumptions about the behaviour
of the ‘agents’ who use the system. Marshall
(2005) has also developed methods of route
structure analysis that deal with the network
as a whole as an abstracted pattern but takes
into account a wider range of perceptual
aspects and the full range of functions
expected of streets within the context of
contemporary urban design.
A more basic method (Kropf, 2008) starts
with the simple classification of routes essen-
tially into culs-de-sac, loops and thorough-
fares and extends to include centres and
the connections between them as a part of
the system (figure 6). The result is a broad
distinction between strategic and local

Figure 6. Route structure

analysis of Leighton Linslade,
Bedfordshire. Light/cased:
primary strategic routes
connecting settlements;
medium/cased: secondary
strategic routes, connecting
primary routes; dark/uncased:
thoroughfares connecting
strategic or local routes;
medium/uncased: loops;
medium/dark: multi-headed
culs-de-sac; light/uncased: culs-
de-sac. (Source: Base mapping
Crown copyright Ordnance
Survey. All rights reserved)

BUILT  ENVIRONMENT   VOL  37   NO  4 401
 URBAN MORPHOLOGY AND DESIGN
routes but still in terms of the position of
routes within the network. Importantly, the
method feeds straight into the identification
of urban tissue and thus helps to show more
clearly the connection between the network
pattern of routes and the patchwork pattern
of tissues.
One of the benefits of this narrower mor-
phological method of route structure analysis
is that it allows inferences to be made about
both movement and the character of areas.
Traditional traffic modelling tends to start
with the behaviour of the agents and focuses
on the effects of different quantities of agents
using the system.
The obvious benefit of morphological
investigation of routes to the planner and
designer is that it can highlight the role of
a place within a wider context. It starts to
provide a picture of how well places work
and what affect changes in movement
patterns may have on attributes such as
vitality, viability and safety.
The Brighton and Hove study, Osmond’s
investigation of environmental performance
and route analysis in their different ways
start to go beyond the painterly represen-
tation of urban form and investigate forms
‘in use’. But what should be clear is that it is
the combination of a consistent definition of
physical form – urban tissue – and the other
aspects: the social dimension, environmental
performance and movement, that gets
us truly into the data and provides the
depth perception. It is understanding the
characteristics of the form in use that makes
the morphological investigation a useful
tool for the designer or planner. Combining
aspects turns what otherwise might be seen
as merely a museum of forms into a vast
repository of experimental data and a living
design resource.
Comprehensive Application in
Planning Practice
An example of the explicit and open use
of urban morphology in planning practice
402
is the Plan Local d’Urbanisme (PLU) for
the city of Rennes in Brittany (Rennes, nd).
Within the PLU, urban tissue is used as an
operative planning tool. A morphological
analysis identifies a range of different types
of tissue which are then used to define
zones. The characteristics of the tissues
expressed in terms of component elements
(street space, plots, buildings… relationships,
dimensions…) are used as the basis for the
règlement or regulations for the respective
zones (figure 7). An overriding aim is to
maintain the character and workings of the
city as a whole and its individual areas. The
approach recognizes that different types
of form serve different purposes and the
diversity of forms is important to the vitality
of the city. At the same time, explicit use of
tissue makes it possible to target interventions
in a much more precise way with a better
understanding of what is affected. There is
sufficient flexibility to relax or generalize
the règlement to allow for innovation and
change in the zones that need to be changed
or improved.
The use of urban tissue as a basis for a
code is a kind of ‘reverse engineering’ from
the existing structure of the settlement, an
approach piloted on a much smaller scale
in Asnières-sur-Oise (Kropf, 2011). Within
the UK, this ‘character-based approach’ was
taken in producing the Stratford-on-Avon
District Design Guide (Kropf, 2001). The
structure of the UK planning system is not
readily amenable to the explicit definition
of zones and regulation of development
by codes. Nor, as mentioned previously,
is it sympathetic to overt morphological
terminology. The Stratford Guide therefore
sought to translate the specialist language
into more common terms and integrate the
understanding of settlements with landscape
character assessment, which uses the same
basic method of analysis (Countryside
Commission, 1991; Swanwick and Land Use
Consultants, 2002). The morphological origins
of the guide are evident in the structure,
based on levels of scale, the explicit use of
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Figure 7. The main zoning
plan for the Rennes Plan Local
d’Urbanism. The zones are
effectively different types
of urban tissue identified
through morphological
analysis.
urban tissue as a basis for understanding
character and a focus on the relative position
of elements as a basis for variations in design
(for example, in relation to street hierarchies,
positions within a block, plot or building).
Developmental Regularities
With its focus on process, urban morphology
also brings insights through understanding
developmental regularities. The regularities,
or ‘habitual’, generic processes, have been
identified by examining and comparing many
examples. Probably the most fundamental
generic process is the formation of routes and
the occupation of the land made accessible on
either side of the route (Caniggia and Maffei,
2001, pp. 124–138; Marshall, 2005). A further
step in the process is the extension outward
and progressive connection of further routes
and occupation of land to create the com-
plementary pattern of a contiguous route
network and isolated street blocks (Caniggia
and Maffei, 2001, p. 133).
Caniggia and Maffei’s codification of
the process led them to consider the block
‘equivocal’ as a fundamental element of
urban form. The progressive formation of
a block, street by street, over time tends to
BUILT  ENVIRONMENT   VOL  37   NO  4
lead to a differentiation in the structure of the
different sides of the blocks, the more basic
unit being the street with plots either side
(Kropf, 2006; figure 8), each contributing one
of its plot series to the block. It is a mark of
the extent to which Caniggia and Maffei, and
Saverio Muratori (1910–1973) before them,
were ahead of their time that they recognized
that developmental regularities or generic
processes at one level of scale give rise to
emergent forms at another level that can be
recognized and formulated into conscious
design ideas. In their view, the urban grid
as a unified design concept was suggested
by observing the emergent formation of
blocks from connecting up built routes.
They recognized the interplay between the
emergent and the planned and codified it
into the typological process (Kropf, 2003a).
An example of an effort to apply that
sensitivity to both finer structure and process
in practice is the South Yorkshire Residential
Design Guide (studio | REAL, 2011). The
guide promotes the street (route with plots
either side) as the basic unit of development
and the formation of blocks by combining
the plot series contributed from each of the
surrounding streets (figure 8). The resulting
block has a ‘bias’ or inflection directly related
403
 URBAN MORPHOLOGY AND DESIGN
Figure 8. Diagrams from the South Yorkshire
Residential Design Guide illustrating the street
as a unit of development and the reciprocal
relationship between the street and block resulting
in a block form with a bias or inflection.
404
to the hierarchy of surrounding streets and
thus much more convincingly fits into and
reflects its particular position within the
street network.
Similarly, as noted by both Caniggia and
Maffei (2001, p. 138) and Slater (1997), there
is a tendency for finer sub-division of plots
at corners of blocks in order to take full
advantage of street frontage. This tendency
is the basis for promoting the use of smaller
building types in corner zones in the South
Yorkshire Guide (figure 9).
The Substance and Material of
Urban Design
The examples of the PLU for Rennes, the
Stratford-on-Avon District Design Guide
and the South Yorkshire Design Guide all
cut into the substance of urban form to get
a better understanding of the ways in which
it is articulated, where the seams and lines
of separation are, and how elements work
together as a whole. Taking things apart,
naming the parts and examining those parts
in use gets us into the data in the way that
Benjamin suggested the surgeon does. It
also gets us closer to a position advocated
by Richard Sennett in his book The Craftsman
(2009). In a broader examination of the idea
of craftsmanship, Sennett argues that a
heightened understanding of the working
material is an essential foundation for quality
in the act of creation. He makes a general
statement about craftsmanship that seems
particularly apt for dealing with the design
of urban form:
Three basic abilities are the foundation of
craftsmanship. These are the ability to localize,
to question and to open up. The first involves
making a matter concrete, the second reflecting
on its qualities, the third expanding its sense.
The carpenter establishes the peculiar grain of
a single piece of wood, looking for detail; turns
the wood over and over, pondering how the
pattern on the surface might reflect structure
hidden underneath; decides that the grain can
be brought out if he or she uses a metal solvent
rather than standard wood varnish. To deploy
BUILT  ENVIRONMENT   VOL  37   NO  4
 MORPHOLOGICAL INVESTIGATIONS: CUTTING INTO THE SUBSTANCE OF URBAN FORM
Figure 9. Diagram from the South Yorkshire
Residential Design Guide showing different zones
within the block including corners, where plots might
be more finely divided to take advantage of the corner
frontage.
these capabilities the brain needs to process
in parallel visual, aural, tactile, and language-
symbol information. (Sennett, 2009)
Sennett’s thoughts on craftsmanship sug-
gest an interpretation of urban grain with
much more depth and substance than its
current meaning. Urban fabric is the material
that urban designers must learn to master, not
just as a formal exercise but to serve human
purposes – to serve life. To be good at it and
develop skill, we need hands-on experience,
cutting, shaping and putting together the
parts. We need to understand urban fabric
the way a joiner understands wood, how it
behaves in use and under stress, its strengths,
weaknesses and fracture lines and how its
internal structure affects the way it can be
put together.
Benjamin’s analogy of the surgeon also
holds, up to a point. Without falling into
the trap of a literal organic metaphor, urban
tissue is living to the extent that it accom-
modates living, moving people and to the
extent that the structure and character of
the tissue can affect the way that people live
and move about. For a graft or repair to be
successful, it has to be connected up in the
right way and to do so you need to know
how all the parts work. It is this ‘living’ aspect
BUILT  ENVIRONMENT   VOL  37   NO  4
of urban form and the inclusion of people
as part of the process that prompted Jane
Jacobs (1961) to identify the city as a problem
of organized complexity. In addition to the
mechanics, activity and information play an
essential part in the workings of urban form.
Another analogy that resonates is the
landscape architect. Successful urban design
results in a place that flourishes, changes and
grows richer with time. The initial design
only sets things off for the subsequent action
of many individuals to inhabit and adapt just
as the landscape architect only establishes an
initial state of a proposal that relies on the
growth and change of individual plants to be
fully realized. To be successful, the landscape
architect needs to ensure that when he or she
selects and locates plants they are in the right
place for them to survive and flourish on their
own (Marshall, 2009, uses this analogy in his
exploration of cities, design and evolution).
In the end, no one analogy fits exactly,
which only serves to emphasize that the
craftsman of urban form can only really learn
the craft by working with and understanding
urban form. The analogies may help but they
can never substitute for an intimate under-
standing of the material that is the substance
of urban design. In all cases, to be successful,
405
 URBAN MORPHOLOGY AND DESIGN
the skilled craftsman must know his or her
materials. And each kind of material has its
own characteristics.
The essence of the morphological method
is to examine the different aspects at differ-
ent levels of scale and bring them together
as a kind of mental synthesis. The aim is
to identify the patterns that emerge when
examining the physical forms and their
associations with the other aspects, for
example between plots and patterns of use
or ownership, and feed the interplay between
the ideal and the actual.
Localize, Question and Open Up
Urban tissue is the emblem of urban
morphology. It is underpinned by the core
concepts of the formative process, generic
structure of levels of scale and specific
configurations or types of form. As a physical
entity, it is an embodiment of cultural habits
and serves as a reference for coordinating the
full range of aspects that constitute urban
form. As an element in the hierarchy of scale,
urban tissue lies at the mid-point. It is the
element that is combined to form the larger
scale structure of whole settlements and is
composed of the smaller scale elements that
create places and local identity (figure 10).
406
Urban morphology, with its acknowledge-
ment of the basic forces at play and its
sensitivity to nuance, is a tool that allows the
urban designer to address urban form as a
craft in the terms set out by Richard Sennett.
We can ‘localize’ by distinguishing the
different aspects of urban form and the levels
of scale, by focusing on the relative position
of parts and associations of elements and by
observing developmental regularities and
generic processes. This effort is exemplified
by the projects illustrated in this article. From
the base layers of characterization such as
the Norwich Conservation Area Appraisal
(figure 2) and Hereford study (figure 3) to
the addition of the social dimension with
the Brighton and Hove study (figure 4),
environmental performance at the University
of New South Wales (figure 5), as well as the
various methods of route structure analysis
(figure 6).
It is really only then that we can ‘question’
in a meaningful way and judge which aspects
and elements are successful at a given time
and which are not. The task of questioning is
illustrated by the examples of the Plan Local
d’Urbanism for Rennes (figure 7) and South
Yorkshire Residential Design Guide (figures
8 and 9). It is at this stage that it is necessary
to exercise judgement and try to determine
Figure 10. The patchwork
of different kinds of urban
tissue making up the centre
of Leighton Buzzard,
Bedfordshire. (Source: Base
mapping Crown copyright
Ordnance Survey. All rights
reserved)
BUILT  ENVIRONMENT   VOL  37   NO  4
 MORPHOLOGICAL INVESTIGATIONS: CUTTING INTO THE SUBSTANCE OF URBAN FORM
which forms will fit with contemporary
activities. Having questioned, we can then
‘open up’ to the range of possibilities rather
than accepting or rejecting the whole.
We should be open to ideas coming from
anywhere. The advantage of working from
the basis of urban morphology is that it
provides the tools to localize and question
that allow us to see and open up to new
ideas. Urban morphology helps to reveal
the order within the apparent complexity
of urban form and understand how the
complexity emerges. The picture of physical
form provided by urban tissue is the
most effective way to bring together and
coordinate information on the full range of
other aspects that constitute urban form. The
various analogies of anatomy, surgery and
joinery help but if our aim is to advance and
improve the practice of urban design, the
most effective way to do so is to cut more
deeply into, and investigate, the substance of
urban form, the way it is used and the ways
it develops. Urban morphology provides the
best tool for the job.
NOTES
1. By contrast, urban morphology is a common
part of architectural education in countries such as
Spain, France and Italy. In the UK, the term urban
morphology seems to have a relatively broad, if
low level currency, used as a general reference to
‘more detailed study of urban areas’, in particular
dealing with the relative location of uses. There
is, of course, a vein of American architectural
discourse that might be called over-intellectual in
its tendency to construct elaborate arguments, in
conceptually complex and analogically technical
language, that are almost deliberately obfuscatory.
2. It is possible to take a painterly approach
to ‘data’ as demonstrated by some recent
architectural practice which uses the proliferation
of ‘information’ generated by a range of scientific
and quantitative analysis but uses it analogically,
as an arbitrary source of order – arbitrary in the
sense that the data do not relate to the intended
use of the building but merely provide a source of
novel forms.
BUILT  ENVIRONMENT   VOL  37   NO  4
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