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Journal - Viewpoints vol.7 nr.1 (2003)

Viewpoints

If you would like to respond to a viewpoint, or want to write your own, please contact the editor.

Cartography in urban design

Giancarlo Motta and Antonia Pizzigoni,
Dipartimento di Progettazione architettonica, Politecnico di Torino, Viale Mattioli 39, 10125 Torino, Italy. E-mail: giancarlo.motta@polito.it

Much has been said and written on the subject of urban analysis: on the necessity of its practice, on the various results with respect to design, and on the debate it has stimulated regarding the ideas of urban evolution inherent in the construction of a typological survey. Some of these studies have produced concrete results: they have made a rigorous and original contribution to the accumulated body of images of towns. They have also made a considerable contribution - through the no less considerable effort of data collection and archival research - to the representation of particular towns. The most potent and significant example in this respect is the ground-floor survey map. When drafted, this map adds immeasurably to existing urban cartography. In it, the city comes to be represented in its physicality and in the typological quality of its buildings. The urban structure can be interpreted through the residential or monumental nature of the different buildings. It is the map that shows the constructive and typological particularities of a city: it repeats, in its procedure, the role of that first urban representation inscribed in marble and given the name Forma Urbis.

Informing studies concerned with urban analysis are both the theoretical awareness of the role of geography and the experimental and practical application of the research methods of that discipline. This is the case not only as regards the contribution of urban geography to the study of the city, as clearly shown by the significant space given to that subject by Aldo Rossi (1966) in his L'architettura della città: it is also true of the studies of settlements conducted from the perspective of geographical conditions, necessarily relying on an understanding of natural regions over larger areas, initiated by Saverio Muratori and later conducted and developed by Gianfranco Caniggia and, above all, Giancarlo Cataldi (1977).

The theoretical position we take in our own studies is to view architecture as a polytechnic discipline at the core of a plurality of forms of knowledge. Although the relation that unites architecture to the other disciplines is not one of strict necessity (the range of disciplines is as wide as it is varied), it is strong and becomes manifest through the use of different kinds of technical equipment specific to the different fields of knowledge. This applies to both the process of design, which draws out the contents and formal solutions from those fields, and to analysis, where the importance of the different disciplines appears mainly in the techniques of representation and, by extension, the surveying instruments and procedures of research performed on the data provided.

If the field of study is architecture, considered as the humanization and colonization of the earth, as the construction of the built environment and as the form and structure of settlements, the first thing to be examined is the relations with the site. The immediate concern is therefore with geography and, consequently with the techniques of cartographic representation. Indeed, geography or, more precisely, cartographic technique, is engaged in a kind of conversation with archi-tecture. It is a complex relationship characterized by a two-way movement: from architecture to geography and from geography back to archi-tecture. Geography, understood in its most general formulation as the description of the world has, in its construction as a discipline, relied on architecture. From it, geography has drawn not only literary metaphors but also images and visual metaphors with which it replaced its own material. Thus, mountains were originally viewed and represented as enormous buildings with walls, terraces and windows; the seas were seen as vast open spaces which cities overlook like monuments around a piazza; islands were seen as towns; and rivers as 'architecture of water'. At this point a kind of inversion takes place. Cartography, with its rich legacy of graphic devices and techniques, and with its own methods of representation and conventions, presents itself as an extremely efficient and useful instrument for architectural representation, all the more so when the concern is architecture's relationship with the landscape, the nature of the site and the settlement, in particular the town.

In our own work, we have applied cartography as a technique to represent and study the town. We see parallels with the use of typological survey (to highlight the various building qualities of the urban tissue), perspective drawing (to represent urban space as seen from the centrality of the eye-level), and axonometric projection (to show architecture and the city as an abstraction of the lines and planes into which they can be decomposed). What cartography does is to restore urban architecture, bringing to light yet another spatiality: that which Sigfried Gideon (1956) called the spatiality of the plan. Responding, at least in part, to the question, posed by A. Corboz (1993), concerning what type of spatiality characterizes the architecture and town of today, cartography operates on the city and shows a particular type of space that is at once flat and stratified: it is articulated and distributed in a multiplicity of figures.

References

Cataldi, G. (1977) Per una scienza del territorio (Uniedit, Firenze).

Corboz, A. (1993) 'Avete detto 'spazio'?', Casabella 597-8, 20-3.

Giedion, S. (1956) Architektur und Gemeinschaft. Tagebuch einer Entwicklung (Rowohlt, Hamburg).

Rossi, A. (1966) L'architettura della città (Marsilio, Padova).

Multi-scale cartographic systems and morphology

Elwin A. Koster,
Instituut voor Kunst- en Architectuurgeschiedenis, Faculteit der Letteren, Rijksuniversiteit Groningen, Oude Boteringstraat 34, Postbus 716, 9700 AS Groningen, The Netherlands. E-mail: ekoster@let.rug.nl

Research in the history of architecture and urban planning is often hampered by limitations of current computer cartography. As a legacy of pre-computerized cartography, current cartographic systems normally focus on presenting information at a single scale - for example a few street blocks per map or an area covering several square kilometres. But the proper study of urban change requires that the researcher be able to relate events at the micro-level (for example, the individual plot) to aggregate effects at the level of the municipality. 'Sprawl', for instance, is a phenomenon most readily appreciated cartographically at a low level of resolution (a sizeable part of a city, or even an entire conurbation), but its causes need to be understood at the scale of individual developments. By using multi-scale cartographic systems it is possible to facilitate this sort of investigation. All different levels of scale - from local to regional - can be brought together in one system and compared. To achieve this a new language must be created that is based on the description of geographic information. Such a system is currently under development using the Geography Markup Language (GML) (Cox et al., 2001), which is closely related to Geographic Information Systems.

The history of the 'Randstad' and the associated ideal of the Groene Hart is one example of the need for the use of different scales in the same research. In the process of urbanization we see the multi-centre provincial town of Almere rapidly being transformed into a metropolitan environment. There is the opportunity here to develop and test at a larger scale, such as that of the Randstad, methods of morphological research that were originally intended for a local scale. The main question is how to integrate information from several scales in a single system to support planning research. A GIS-like system that is able to include different types of sources free of scale provides the solution.

In the recent Vijfde Nota (Ministerie van VROM en de Rijksplanologische Dienst, 2001) there is an important role for cartography in the form of base maps. In a special issue of Stedenbouw en Ruimtelijke Ordening on the Vijfde Nota the designers of these maps state that 'the inviting image only partly displays how the data behind the map must be viewed' (Jannink and Veldhuis, 2001, p. 29). Later (p. 30) they observe that 'the step towards using fully the interactive possibilities of the internet has still to be taken'. Nonetheless, increasingly the computer and the internet are being used to clarify the spatial future of the Netherlands for a large audience. Examples of this use are the Arcam-kaart (Stichting Arcam, 2002) and the recent project of the Nieuwe Kaart van Nederland (Groot, 2002). In research into the future use of space these projects are important. They offer a way to trace and compare the different developments. This kind of initiative should also be taken in urban morphology. Putting research data on the Internet allows other researchers to make links to it. A researcher may click on a spot on, for example, a world map and view the data relating to that spot.

An important part of current morphological research carried out by geographers, architects and others focuses on the transformation of the townscape based on entities with similar morphological characteristics. Hitherto there has been a limited number of studies that go beyond the scale of the historic city centre. The system we envisage in our work at the University of Groningen would enable projects covering large areas to link data seamlessly from local studies down to the level of the individual plot, with no need for conversion or reinterpretation. Such a system, based on a GIS, needs to be particularly flexible in the way it handles maps that were originally on different scales. It should handle data in the way that the MrSid format does for images (Lizard Tech, 2002).

The morphological research we are undertaking on urban transformation processes in the Netherlands after 1960 should ideally include the regional scale. However, because the amount of information for recent decades is so great, the research we envisage is limited to three urban areas (Almere, Noordflank and Randstadring), their choice having been determined by the sources available.

In the Vijfde Nota Almere (Ministerie van VROM en de Rijksplanologische Dienst, 2001), Almere is referred to as one of 20 centres that the government wants to develop. These centres are situated at important junctions on the Randstadring surrounding the Deltametropolis. The 1970s new town of Almere, like the much larger Randstadring, is laid out as a ring with different nuclei and green zones. But even in a town the size of of Almere we need to study developments at different scales. With the use of several different data sets, we believe Almere will provide an ideal application of a multi-scale cartographic system. In due course this can be applied at the larger scale of the Randstad, or even bigger areas.

References

Cox, S., Cuthbert, A., Lake, R. and Martell, R. (eds) (2001) Geography Markup Language (GML) 2.0 (http://www.opengis.net/gml/01-029/GML2.html) accessed 26 August.

Groot, R. de (2002) De Nieuwe Kaart van Nederland (http://www.nieuwekaart.nl/) accessed 26 August.

Jannink, P. and Veldhuis, W. (2001) 'NL omstreeks 2000', Stedebouw en Ruimtelijke Ordening 82 (2), 28-37.

Lizard Tech (2002) Learn more about geospatial solutions (http://www.lizardtech.com/) accessed 13 November.

Ministerie van VROM en de Rijksplanologische Dienst (2001) Ruimte maken, ruimte delen: Vijfde Nota over de Ruimtelijke Ordening (SDU, Den Haag).

Stichting Arcam (2002) Arcam kaart (http://www.arcam.nl/nl/08kaart/kaart.html) accessed 26 August.

Urban morphology in the Italian tradition of geographical studies

Maria Luisa Sturani,
Dipartimento di Scienze Antropologiche, Archeologiche e Storico-territoriali, Università di Torino, Via G. Giolitti 21/E, 10123 Torino, Italy. E-mail: marialuisa.sturani@unito.it and Bruno Vecchio, Dipartimento di Studi Storici e Geografici, Università di Firenze, Via San Gallo 10, 50129 Firenze, Italy. E-mail: vecchio@unifi.it

Recent Italian contributions to Urban Morphology have focused on the work of architects (see, for example, Marzot, 2002; Menghini, 2002). The practice of urban morphology in the Italian tradition of geographical studies has followed a different course. To clarify it we need first to be clear about what we mean by urban morphology.

Let us therefore start by stating that, in our opinion, three different interpretations of the term 'form' are possible (Farinelli, 1980, p. 63; Vecchio, 2000, pp. 77-8):

According to Larkham (2002), morphology can only be understood as the study of the processes that shape urban form (the second of the above definitions). We accept this definition, although we believe that the aforementioned 'study' can entail varying depths of analytic investigation.

At this point, we should note the views of Marzot (2002, p. 59), who maintains that 'from the Italian point of view, no critical interpretation of an urban phenomenon can be considered outside a specific design strategy for the phenomenon to be investigated'. We think that this statement should not be accepted literally. Although in Italy the contribution of architectural and urban studies is certainly the most consistent and visible when it comes to studies in urban morphology, contributions from other fields, including geography, are by no means lacking.

We have the impression that the relative importance attached to geography and town planning in Italy and Great Britain reflects different study traditions in the two countries. With regard to town planning, it is worth pointing out the different roles that schools of architecture have played in the two countries: in Great Britain they are closer to bona fide design, whereas in Italy they include urban and regional planning (Samuels, 1990, pp. 430-1).

Geography, however, has never had bestowed on it the prestige enjoyed by architecture and planning in Italy. Like other national geographical schools, it has long professed what could be described as the 'cult of topographic form'. Topographic form is 'form' according to the first of the three above-cited definitions, but this definition is further impoverished by the very abstract nature of representation used in a topographic map. Given that the latter has long had the power to decide what is important and what is not important for the geographer (Farinelli, 1992, p. 146), it is no surprise that geographers have long been reticent to apply the appropriate tools to investigate the concept of the city.

The point of departure for a discussion on the morphological study of the city in Italian geography has to be the work of Toschi, who distanced himself from considerations of a purely topographic nature, and who tested his methods on Bologna (Toschi, 1933). Toschi believed that it is important to identify the differences between districts within the city, starting from those land uses that take up larger areas (for example, railway stations for goods and passengers, public parks, the cathedral, the town hall and university buildings). Therefore the method adopted to establish this differentiation is topographic observation, including that of the urban landscape. Toschi went as far as suggesting that the social character of a district is a decisive factor for urban differentiation. However, he did not implement his own suggestion; and moreover, he avoided any systematic recourse to historical investigation. The unsatisfactory results ensuing from this approach, and the fear of no longer being able to distinguish geographical investigation from that of town planning, eventually led Toschi to declare that the type of morphological study that he himself founded had run its course (Toschi, 1956).

Under these circumstances, from the 1950s onward any real revival of morphological studies within Italian geography could only have been based on either extending landscape studies to townscapes (as a matter of fact landscape studies enjoyed a certain amount of prestige in Italian geographical circles, and made considerable theoretical and methodological progress in that period), or a frank acceptance of the methods of historical investigation.

The first scenario was not forthcoming. Indeed landscape studies, ranging from the coherently naturalistic ones of Biasutti (1947) to Gambi's (1973a) inspired, equally coherently, by human geography, and the more eclectic ones of Sestini, are predominantly applied to non-urbanized spaces and, as in Great Britain, any constructive dialogue between the investigation of the rural landscape and urban morphology did not take place. The second scenario did, however, come to pass, once again under the impetus of Gambi, who proposed a coherent interpretation of the city as a historical phenomenon. One of his key sayings - in line with Henri Lefebvre's ideas - is that urban functions and forms are 'a mere projection of structural, socio-economic phenomena' (Gambi, 1973b, p. 135).

In accord with Gambi's assertions, geographers gave increasing attention to historical reconstruction of the evolution of the town plan in individual cities and their districts. Evidence of this phenomenon can be found in volume 6, Atlante, of the Storia d'Italia (History of Italy) (Gambi, 1976), which contains brief accounts of Italian cities, and later in a series of books entitled Le città nella storia d'Italia (Cities in the history of Italy), published by Laterza since 1980: the majority of these books (to date about 45 have been published) have been entrusted to architects and town planners, but several (Milan, Ferrara, Ravenna and Messina) have been wholly or partly entrusted to geographers. The question of the relationship between the evolution of urban form and its figurative representations has also been a theme of such studies. Indeed, some authors (see, in particular, Gambi and Gozzoli, 1982) have placed more emphasis on it than on historical reconstruction. This approach has made it possible to trace historically the different ways in which the form of the city was seen, interpreted and visually transmitted, from medieval to modern times, setting an important precedent for the critical use of historical cartography as a source in urban morphology.

Of the many overall assessments of the evolution of urban form in Italy after the Second World War, the contribution of the Turin school, under the direction of Dematteis (for example, Dematteis et al., 1976; Dematteis, 1978) certainly merits a mention. Several years later, Vecchio (1992) reconstructed morphological transform-ations in a medium-sized urban area in southern Italy (Cosenza) after 1945, systematically using the discussions and resolutions of the town councils in question as well as examining town plans. These observations by geographers on the form of the modern Italian city have also been made possible by adopting several fundamental concepts that had been investigated at length by Italian town planners and urban economists. These include those of rendita fondiaria urbana (urban land rent) and blocco edilizio e fondiario (the vested interest in urban development and construction). These concepts also helped reconstruct the nature of post-war urban growth in terms of land economics. The theoretical definitions of Campos Venuti (1967) and Indovina (1972), and the impressive investigation by Insolera (1971) on the nature of the growth of Rome as capital of Italy (from 1870 onwards), have been significant for geographers.

In recent years, several branches of Italian geography have finally adopted a renewed, more mature approach to urban morphology, supported by the wealth of experience in historical geographical research. This has benefited from research on rural landscapes, as well as Gambi's views on urban representations. It has been influenced by the debate on heritage conservation and management, including contributions by cultural, economic and historical geographers. One of the consequences of this is a research project that explicitly states that one of its objectives is the revival of morphological studies, as a geographical contribution to the analysis and management of urban landscapes. This research (co-ordinated by Paola Sereno of Turin Uni-versity) attempts to reconstitute the different parts of the Italian tradition, although its attention is firmly focused on the second of our definitions of urban form, the genetic processes by which it is formed. This new approach owes much to the perspective developed by the Conzenian school, applying its concepts and methods to several case studies (mainly small towns located in various Italian regions, analysed on medium time scales, between the late Middle Ages and the twentieth century). The adoption of a common theoretical reference appears to be fundamental to overcoming the idiographic emphasis of previous studies. Analogies and differences between individual morphogenetic dynamics are highlighted empirically. This research should encourage the revival of a theoretical debate on the methods of morphological investigation within Italian geography.

References

Biasutti, R. (1947) Il paesaggio terrestre (Unione Tipografico-Editrice Torinese, Torino).

Campos Venuti, G. (1967) Amministrare l'urbanistica (Einaudi, Torino).

Dematteis, G., Di Meglio, G., Lusso, G., Segre, A. and Buscaglia, A. (1976) 'L'organisation capitaliste du territoire et les problèmes du logement en Italie', in Pecora, A. and Pracchi, R. (eds) Italian contributions to the Twenty-Third International Geographical Congress 1976 (CNR, Roma) 235-46.

Dematteis, G. (1978) 'La crisi della città contemporanea', in Capire l'Italia. Le città (Touring Club Italiano, Milano), 170-97.

Farinelli, F. (1980) 'Il versante meridionale del Gran Sasso: la 'forma' dei campi', in Fondi, M. (ed.) Ricerche Geografiche sull'Abruzzo (Istituto di Geo- grafia, Napoli) 63-73.

Farinelli, F. (1992) I segni del mondo. Immagine cartografica e discorso geografico in età moderna (La Nuova Italia, Scandicci).

Gambi, L. (1973a) 'Critica ai concetti geografici di paesaggio umano', in Gambi, L., Una geografia per la storia (Einaudi, Torino) 148-74.

Gambi, L. (1973b) 'I problemi urbanistici odierni del nostro paese, negli scritti dei geografi', in Gambi, L., Una geografia per la storia (Einaudi, Torino) 109-35.

Gambi, L. (ed.) (1976) Atlante, Storia d'Italia 6 (Einaudi, Torino).

Gambi, L. and Gozzoli, M.C. (1982) Milano (Laterza, Roma-Bari).

von Humboldt, A. (1845) Kosmos. Entwurf eines phys-ischen Weltbeschreibung, vol. 1 (Cotta, Stuttgart-Tübingen).

Indovina, F. (ed.) (1972) Lo spreco edilizio (Marsilio, Padova).

Insolera, I. (1971) Roma moderna. un secolo di storia urbanistica, 2nd edn (Einaudi, Torino).

Larkham, P.J. (2002) 'Misusing 'morphology'?', Urban Morphology 6, 95-7.

Marzot, N. (2002) 'The study of urban form in Italy', Urban Morphology 6, 59-73.

Menghini, A.B. (2002) 'The city as form and structure: the urban project in Italy from the 1920s to the 1980s', Urban Morphology 6, 75-86.

Samuels, I. (1990) 'Architectural practice and urban morphology', in Slater, T.R. (ed.) The built form of Western cities (Leicester University Press, Leicester) 415-35.

Toschi, U. (1933) Studi di morfologia urbana (Comune di Bologna, Bologna).

Toschi, U. (1956) 'Esame di coscienza di uno studioso di geografia urbana', Bollettino della Società geografica italiana 93, 507-13.

Vecchio, B. (1992) L'agglomerazione Cosenza-Rende: una morfologia urbana (Istituto di Geografia dell'Università, Napoli).

Vecchio, B. (2000) 'Sugli studi di morfologia urbana e la città contemporanea', Storia Urbana 93, 77-89.

International comparisons: putting precept into practice

Kwang-Joong Kim,
Seoul Development Institute, 391 Seocho-dong, Seocho-ku, Seoul 137-071, Korea. E-mail: kjkim@sdi.re.kr

Leading thinkers in urban morphology have long been calling for greater comparative study at the international level. This note highlights a current project that, though not a direct response to that call in that it stems from the perceived needs of a particular metropolitan authority, promises to provide valuable comparative data across an international range of 'world cities'.

In its advisory role to the City of Seoul on land use policy, the Seoul Development Institute has commissioned from ISUF an investigation that will enable Seoul's development pattern and density to be compared with those of other world cities of equivalent size. With some 10 million people within an area of 605 km2, Seoul is one of the most heavily populated cities in the world. There has been much debate about the intensity of its city building: arguments for efficient land use have been ranged against those emphasizing the problems of overcrowding. With its fine-grained plot patterns, Seoul's building coverage appears very high. Yet it is not clear whether the city's floor-space concentration is higher than that of other world cities as Seoul has large areas of low-rise development. The 'compact city' has been touted as a promising way to achieve sustainable urban form in Western countries, but it is a questionable notion in Asian cities, where dense development has for long been sustained.

The research being undertaken by ISUF involves case studies of six cities in Asia, Europe and North America: Seoul, Tokyo, London, Paris, New York and Los Angeles. In formulating this project, the Seoul Development Institute was fortunate to have Anne Vernez Moudon and Jeremy Whitehand as Project Advisers, providing pivotal and timely guidance from research design through to project execution. The Principal Investigators for individual cities are Shigeru Satoh (Tokyo), Peter Larkham (London), Catherine Maumi (Paris), Paul Hess (New York), Chanam Lee (Los Angeles) and Kwang-Joong Kim (Seoul). Seven areas are being sampled from each city to serve as a basis for comparisons. Two sample areas in each city are within the central business district and five within residential areas. The project employs traditional morphological methods for detailed comparison of urban form. The sample areas, each 500 by 500 metres, are being investigated in terms of street network, lot division, and buildings. Analyses will be made of building coverage, floor-space concentration, street-space concentration, building height, and household density.

This spring, the participating members are scheduled to take part in a three-day workshop in Seoul. The results of the project will be presented during ISUF 2003 in Trani, Italy.

Sustainability and urban morphology

Kiril Stanilov,
College of Design, Art, Architecture and Planning, University of Cincinnati, PO Box 210016, Cincinnati, OH 45221-0016, USA. E-mail: stanilk@email.uc.edu

The proliferation of literature on 'sustainability', combined with numerous conferences and educational events proclaiming this subject, has popularized it practically worldwide. In this light the lack of research addressing issues of sustainability from a morphological perspective is surprising. The impressive reference list compiled by Peter Larkham for the ISUF web site contains no mention of the word sustainability in any one of the hundreds of entries (Larkham, 2002). In the programme of the ISUF 2001 conference in Cincinnati the word is present in only one of the titles (out of a total of 156 papers). Are urban morphologists just cautious about applying an overused, value-driven concept in a discipline characterized by its objective approach?

The study of urban form is characterized by a highly descriptive approach (Moudon, 1992). To what extent could and should the boundaries of the field stretch beyond the purely descriptive into the realm of qualitative evaluations and prescriptive recommendations? The answer to this question varies between the major schools of urban morphology, each one mixing its specific blend of descriptive and prescriptive approaches influenced primarily by the disciplines from which it emerged. The range is defined on one side by the purist stand of the British school rooted in the tradition of urban geography practiced with a pronounced detachment from the observed phenomena (Whitehand, 2001). The opposite end is marked by the explicit intention of the Italian school to use morphological analysis as a tool for evaluating and developing architectural design solutions (Cataldi et al., 2002; Marzot, 2002).

It seems that from its inception the territory of urban morphology was generously mapped to incorporate a variety of approaches and open to the introduction of new concepts and ideas related to urban space and form. The slow entry of the concept of sustainability is therefore puzzling. If the main goal of urban morphologists is to analyze the transformations of the built environment, should they not be able to pass informed judgments about the direction of these changes?

The explosive urbanization of the last 150 years has drastically altered the form of cities throughout the world, leading to an escalation of social and environmental tensions. A number of solutions have been prescribed to address the urban crisis, drawing ideas from various sources - from placing an emphasis on aesthetic order (the city beautiful movement), to social utopias (the garden city movement), to rejection of the past (the Modernist movement), to mimicking historical patterns (New Urbanism). Yet none of these prescriptions are grounded in an understanding of the historical patterns and processes guiding the evolution of the built environment. To this day, the wide gap between descriptive and prescriptive theories about urban form remains.

In this sense, urban morphology is positioned uniquely, being able to span the distance between the descriptive and the prescriptive, the explanatory and the normative. In fact, Conzen's writings on townscape management (Whitehand, 1981) and Muratori's and Caniggia's development of operative theories (Muratori, 1959; Caniggia and Maffei, 2001) make the case that the ultimate purpose of morphological analysis is to be applied as a guide for the physical planning and development of urban areas. This proactive stand should be carried forward. It is important to continue morphological research into historical periods and places to enhance our understanding of how the built environment is formed and transformed. Yet it is equally important to make the connections between explanatory descriptive analysis and the devising of solutions to current problems. This could be done by developing stronger links with the new ideas and movements that are emerging within the realm of urban and environmental design including the concepts of sustainable development, smart growth and the New Urbanism.

In relation to sustainability there are several respects in which morphological research can make significant contributions. The most widely used definition of sustainability calls for the use of natural resources to support human activities in a way that does not compromise the quality of life for future generations (World Commission on Environment and Development, 1997). A central issue is the way in which societies use land to accommodate the explosive rate of urbanization. The debate on urban sprawl, perceived typically as a North American problem, is catching on in other parts of the world experiencing difficulties regulating and controlling the unprecedented expansion of urban areas and the consumption of land for those purposes. Yet the problem of curbing growth is hardly a new one. A historical perspective on the transformations of urban form in periods of extreme growth can provide us with useful insights into a variety of growth strategies that have been pursued over the centuries. In addition, morphological explorations of patterns of new suburban development can illuminate issues that are often overlooked. Obvious indicators of sprawl, such as density, land-use mix, automobile ownership and income, have little explanatory power in terms of how people use their environ-ment if one does not consider characteristics of urban form such as street layout, lot and block configuration, building placement and accessibility (Moudon et al., 1997; Hess et al., 1999).

Another aspect of the sustainability debate to which a morphological approach can be applied is the regeneration of existing urban fabrics through large-scale redevelopment of entire neighbour-hoods or incremental infill insertions of new projects into an eroded urban fabric. The large-scale redevelopment of public housing projects in the United States, run under the auspices of a federal programme known as Hope VI, embraces enthusiastically the principles of the New Urbanism. Often these principles are applied as a formula with little understanding of the local historical context that a morphological analysis can provide. Such superficial application of fashionable design formulas results typically in environments that lack connections with historical traditions of place-making, except for a few crude references to 'traditional' colours or arbitrary architectural detail.

A further aspect of sustainability to which morphological research is relevant is architectural design. Most of the work on typomorphology, following in the footsteps of Muratori and Caniggia, can be placed in the context of a discussion about breaks in the historical continuity of urban form and the concomitant problems created by such departures from existing traditions. The work of the Italian school of urban morphology presents an immense body of knowledge that could be applied to bring important insights to the debate on sustainable urban development. Yet the links to sustainability are never explicitly stated and a great opportunity to introduce the ideas of the Italian school of urban morphology to a larger audience interested in issues of sustainable design is underutilized.

Urban morphology not only casts light on problems that others cannot see but provides sound methods for developing solutions grounded in knowledge of thousands of years of city building. If we are hesitant to enter the realm of controversial subjective statements and pre-scriptive design solutions associated with the theme of sustainability, rereading our classics provides us with a healthy push in the back.

References

Caniggia, G. and Maffei, G.L. (2001) Architectural composition and building typology: interpreting basic building (Alinea, Firenze).

Cataldi, G., Maffei, G.L. and Vaccaro, P. (2002)'Saverio Muratori and the Italian school of planning typology', Urban Morphology 6, 3-14.

Hess, P., Moudon, A.V., Snyder, M.C. and Stanilov, K. (1999) 'Site design and pedestrian travel', Transportation Research Record 1674, 9-19.

Larkham, P.J. (comp.) (2002) Urban morphology: consolidated reading list (http://brok.let.rug.nl/~ekoster/glossary/morphobib.php) accessed 1 November.

Marzot, N. (2002) 'The study of urban form in Italy', Urban Morphology 6, 59-73.

Moudon, A.V. (1992) 'A catholic approach to organizing what urban designers should know', Journal of Planning Literature 6, 331-49.

Moudon, A.V., Hess, P., Snyder, M.C. and Stanilov, K. (1997) 'Pedestrian travel in mixed-use, medium-density environments', Transportation Research Record 1578, 48-55.

Muratori, S. (1959) Studi per una operante storia urbana di Venezia (Istituto Poligraphico dello Stato, Roma).

Whitehand, J.W.R. (2001) 'British urban morphology: the Conzenian tradition', Urban Morphology 5, 103-9.

Whitehand, J.W.R. (ed.) (1981) The urban landscape: historical development and management. Institute of British Geographers Special Publication 13 (Academic Press, London).

World Commission on Environment and Development (1997) Our common future (Oxford University Press, Oxford).

The challenge of ethnoscapes

Noha Nasser,
Birmingham School of Architecture and Landscape, University of Central England, Perry Barr, Birmingham, B42 2SU, UK. E-mail: noha.nasser@uce.ac.uk

There is a lack of morphological studies of the interaction between new, 'foreign' cultures and the established urban traditions of the West. Within the current changing global context, ethnic communities are creating heterogeneous neighbourhoods, or 'ethnoscapes',1 in Western industrial cities, expressive of their cultural identities. This opens new opportunities to test the relationship between social and cultural processes on the one hand, and urban form on the other. This relationship accords with the principal morphological processes of accumulation, adaptation, persistence, and replacement defined by Conzen (1988). Human agency, whether indigenous or foreign, shapes its physical reality within the constraints of previous forms and more directly through the emergence of new cultural forms. This viewpoint suggests a basic research framework and multi-disciplinary approach for the examination of these emerging built forms.

Segregation or integration?

Within the urban sphere, the characteristic pattern of ethnic settlement has been clustering in close-knit communities according to region of origin, and kinship and village ties. The significance of this spatial concentration has been the creation of segregated enclaves within urban areas. Contrary to common belief that segregated communities are a result of discrimination, Peach (2000) has shown that, in many instances, ethnic commun-ities segregate voluntarily as a means of main-taining social cohesion, cultural values and social networks. The pattern of settlement within the city, and also in specific neighbourhoods and streets, reflects the migrants' preference (Dahya, 1974).

However, by adapting to the existing built forms of the new setting, ethnic communities are attempting to integrate. Integration is character-ized by patterns of exchange and encounter between cultures which create hybrid places (AlSayyad, 2001). This hybridity includes the appropriation of space, adaptation of buildings, and the reproduction of architectural idiom and symbolism, by the ethnic community.

Hybrid urban landscapes

The urban spaces and built forms in which cultural elaboration, transformation, and reproduction occur can be divided into three broad types: religious/cultural space, community/public space, and domestic/private space. Ethnic identities are shaped by infusing new meaning to these spaces. The close relationship between ethnicity and faith has been one way in which visual and spatial markers have symbolized new religious presence. The need to perpetuate religious practice, social norms, and cultural values has created an impetus for the setting up of ritual space and community centres. This has taken two forms. First, the emphasis given to the uniting of people for worship and cultural events, rather than on the building, has led to the appropriation and adaptation of a variety of traditional building types; the house, community buildings, and churches. Secondly, the recent growth in the assertiveness of ethnic communities in many Western countries has led to the construction of purpose-built religious and cultural buildings of a distinctive 'ethnic' architectural language. This raises a number of exploratory questions. What types of morphological and architectural patterns have emerged from the interactive dialogue between the local vernacular and the ethnic paradigm? How robust have buildings been when they have acquired new cultural and functional meaning? To what extent has the use of visual symbols of the ethnic architectural tradition reinforced a vocabulary understood in the West as representing a specific identity? How have architectural elements such as arches, pillars, intricately ornamented cornices and art forms been used on the main façades to reinforce a building's distinctiveness? In many cases, this 'foreign' style is reminiscent of the architectural styles of the homeland, an imported vernacular, which has dramatically changed traditional skylines once dominated by the pointed church spire.

The appropriation of space to address specific ethnic needs, or 'reterritorialization' as it is referred to by Loukaitou-Sideris (2002), can also be exemplified in the commercial streets of ethnic neighbourhoods. From the middle of the last century, many of these ethnic neighbourhoods have experienced the gradual displacement of locally-owned businesses by the incoming ethnic communities (see examples in Dahya, 1974; Loukaitou-Sideris, 2002; and Nasser, forth-coming). To further distinguish ethnic shops from their local counterparts, signs and notices in ethnic languages on the fascias of shop windows delineate ethnic space. In some cases, such as the South Asian community in Britain, the tradition of living close to businesses, as in the concept of the 'shop house', has been revived (Smith, 1980). The street space forms an essential venue for commercial activity and social interaction. Temporary, independent stalls line the pavements, but more apparent are the temporary extensions to the shop floor space on to public street space (Figure 1). These streetscapes are easily identifiable with connotations such as 'Little India', 'Chinatown' or 'Little Saigon' (Nasser, 2002; Loukaitou-Sideris, 2002). This raises the question of what it is about these streetscapes that is distinctive. The most probable answer is the different conceptualization of the street space which may be the result of the rural background of these migrant populations, or the reproduction of traditional market-place economies. Is part of the distinctive character created by morphological changes? To what extent are morphological changes constrained or facilitated by the planning authorities? These questions suggest the need for a closer examination of the interaction between ethnic communities, the host society, and the subsequent evolution of traditional built forms and streets.

The ethnicity of communities may also have a strong influence on the way in which domestic space is used, adapted, and transformed to suit cultural needs. Factors such as religious observance and family size may influence the way rooms are used, extended, and transformed within the house. These changes can be better understood when compared to domestic space in the homeland: to what extent are houses in the West being modelled in accordance with traditional dwellings?

Desiderata

These questions require a broader exchange between disciplines in underpinning our understanding of ethnically-infused morphological changes in Western cities. The challenge, however, is to develop a morphological approach based on integrating socio-cultural, political, and economic frameworks with a more conventional morphological analysis.

Changes to the town plan, building fabric, and land use relate directly to processes of change in socio-cultural needs, new functional requirements, and economic development of ethnic areas. Therefore, research on ethnoscapes stands to benefit considerably from anthropological, ethnographic, and sociological knowledge of communities and how issues of identity-making, semiotics, customs, and practices relate to spatial requirements. From an economic perspective, it is increasingly being recognized that ethnic communities are, in fact, economically and physically regenerating substantial parts of the urban landscape (Loukaitou-Sideris, 2002). To what extent political conditions and planning policies have contributed to this regeneration remains to be examined, particularly in light of a comparison between, on the one hand, changes recorded in formal planning applications and, on the other, small-scale, informal changes. In terms of conventional morphological analysis, processes of persistence, adaptation, and replacement can be noted at varying scales, from the streetscape to the internal layout of buildings, using a broad range of methods and approaches. Most of the potential sources are well known, including photo-graphs, newspapers, development control records and, for individually small-scale but cumulatively important conversions and extensions, building records. Field work is especially important for recording internal changes, building materials and architectural symbolism.

The emergence of ethnoscapes of cultural distinctiveness in Western cities clearly poses a new challenge to urban morphologists. Western built forms can be utilized, for the most part successfully, by taking on new meanings. These meanings may be to evoke memories of the homeland, to assert a cultural identity within Western society, to stimulate observance of a faith, or to create a focus for a more political form of solidarity. By expressing their ethnicity, these communities are reshaping neighbourhoods into novel, heterogeneous urban landscapes that deserve our attention.

Note

1.The term 'ethnoscapes' was first used by Appadurai (1996) in reaction to the notion of a ghetto as an isolated, homogeneous enclave.

References

AlSayyad, N. (2001) 'Prologue. Hybrid culture/hybrid urbanism: Pandora's Box of the 'Third Place'', in AlSayyad, N. (ed.) Hybrid urbanism. On the identity discourse and the built environment (Praeger, Westport, CT) 1-18.

Appadurai, A. (1996) Modernity at large (University of Minnesota Press, Minneapolis).

Conzen, M.R.G. (1988) 'Morphogenesis, morphological regions and secular human agency in the historic townscape, as exemplified by Ludlow', in Denecke, D. and Shaw, G. (eds) Urban historical geography: recent progress in Britain and Germany (Cambridge University Press, Cambridge) 253-72.

Dahya, B. (1974) 'The nature of Pakistani ethnicity in industrial cities in Britain', in Cohen, A. (ed.) Urban ethnicity (Tavistock Publications, London) 77-118.

Loukaitou-Sideris, A. (2002) 'Regeneration of urban commercial strips: ethnicity and space in three Los Angeles neighborhoods', Journal of Architectural and Planning Research 19, 334-50.

Nasser, N. (2002) 'The adaptation of space as expression of identity: South Asian Muslim neighbourhoods in Britain', unpublished paper presented at the Eighth IASTE Conference, Hong Kong.

Nasser, N. (forthcoming) 'Borderlands: British-Asian hybrid urban landscapes', in Ali, K., Karla, V. and Sayyid, S. (eds) Postcolonial people: South Asians in Britain (Hurst, London).

Peach, C. (2000) 'The consequences of segregation', in Boal, F.W. (ed.) Ethnicity and housing: accommodating differences (Ashgate, Aldershot) 10-27.

Smith, P.R. (1980) 'The Islamic environment in a British city - a case study of Leicester', Ekistics 47, 79-83.

Disciplinary Delilahs

Karl S. Kropf,
Roger Evans Associates, Kidlington, UK and Urban Morphology Research Group, School of Geography, Earth and Environmental Sciences, University of Birmingham, Birmingham B15 2TT, UK. E-mail: kkropf@rogerevans.com

In her viewpoint 'Thinking about micro and macro urban morphology', Anne Vernez Moudon (2002) made an important comment about scale. She pointed out that within the various disciplines of the built environment, there is a general assumption of a linear relationship between the size of an area examined and the level of resolution with which it is viewed. Large areas are viewed at a low level of resolution and small areas at a high level. The assumption is that architects will not need to take into account such things as regions and regional planners will not need to be concerned with bricks and mortar. For Moudon, 'this assumption clearly stifles the applicability of urban morphological studies' (Moudon, 2002, p. 37).

The cause of the difficulty - the stifling - can be found in a feature of the morphological approach, mentioned by Moudon (2002, p. 37), that is both a key strength and a defining attribute. That feature is the idea of a hierarchy of scalar components. In the morphological view, elements in the built environment are not seen as merely lumped together but as intimately interrelated.

The fundamental, abstract idea underlying the concept of such a hierarchy, and the idea that makes that concept so powerful, is difficult to summarize. Reductively, it is the relationship of part-to-whole or individual-to-class but goes a considerable way beyond that. Indeed, the idea has been the subject of extended exploration. Whitehead and Russell (1925) were probably the first to introduce it explicitly in a formal, mathematical context, referring to it as a 'logical type'. Since then it has proved incredibly fruitful, if not necessarily in the way those authors hoped. Douglas Hofstadter (1979) has, in his extraordinary work, Godel, Escher Bach, examined the logical type and hierarchies of types at length, finding them in various manifestations in such realms as mathematics, visual art, neurology, genetics, literature and music, to name a few. The point is that the hierarchy of elements has an extremely robust core that is part of a much broader line of thinking and which can be explicitly and rigorously set out, mathematically if it suits you, though it need not go that far to retain its rigour.

In the morphological approach, the deductive elaboration of the underlying formal relationships sets up a structure - the scale of components - on which to map the specific cases we study. One of the key innovations and strengths of the morpho-logical view is an awareness and understanding of the interrelationships between levels, the recognition that the levels are not just isolated, abstract categories (materials, structures, buildings, plots, etc.) but fundamentally interrelated entities. In many ways the strength of morphology and the thing that sets it apart from other approaches to the built environment lies in its recourse to the hierarchy and the ability to move between levels in examining a given phenomenon. A morphological approach, in general, involves looking both up and down the hierarchy from a given level: looking at both the components of which an object is made and the entity of which the object is a part.

It would seem, then, that to split the scale of components in two, corresponding to macro and micro morphology, would impede the fluent movement between levels. Introducing a distinction between two ends of the scale would seem to neutralize its power. It would be like Samson giving in to the nagging enticements of Delilah and effectively shearing himself of his own strength.

While there are clearly differences between the components found at the various levels (a city is obviously not the same as a plot) and each level has its peculiar features, there is no distinction in formal terms in the relationships between levels in the hierarchy. The relation between any two adjacent levels is the same and so there is no formal reason to draw a boundary.

In all of this we are dogged, as Moudon points out, by the ambiguity of the word 'scale' and, I would argue, a disinclination to take the hierarchical scale of components seriously as an explicit formal structure. Indeed, the ambiguities discussed by Moudon might not be so problematic if the various relationships were clearly identified and labelled (see Table 1). This need not entail either formalism or formalistic language. Shorthand and informal language are always necessary but we should be wary of those shortcuts being used as straw men because the full structure is not well enough defined.

Aside from potentially hampering the power of the morphological approach, a distinction between macro and micro would, in my view, reinforce the existing disciplinary barrier criticized by Moudon. It would create a potential impediment to research and understanding of the interrelation between levels. People might well say, for example, 'I am a macromorphologist, I do not need to bother to look into micromorphological issues'. One kind of disciplinary differentiation would replace another which, in some ways, would be ironic.

There has been and to an extent still is an association, mainly in the Romance languages, between 'typology' and elements lower down the hierarchy (for instance plots, buildings and rooms) and between 'morphology' and elements further up (for instance plan units, tissues and settlements). Crudely, typology is for architects and morphology for urbanists. That distinction is embodied in the colloquial phrase 'typo-morpho', referring to separate studies of building types, on the one hand, and parcel and street patterns on the other. It is a distinction that has only just begun to break down - to the benefit of all - due in large part to the activities and efforts of ISUF members from different disciplines working together. Formally distinguishing between micromorphology and macromorphology appears to be a reintroduction of the 'typo-morpho' divide, reinforcing the disciplinary barrier between architects on the one hand and geographers and urbanists on the other. Specialization of some kind in subject matter is both inevitable and a positive contribution to the field but does it, at this stage, warrant a formal, quasi-methodological delineation between different levels in the scale of components?

Moving up and down the hierarchical scale with fluency and, in so doing, being able to throw more revealing light on phenomena and improving our understanding of the built environment is a key strength we should not give away lightly only to render ourselves 'eyeless in Gaza, at the wheel with slaves...'.

References

Hofstadter, D.R. (1979) Godel, Escher, Bach: an eternal golden braid (Penguin Books, Harmondsworth).

Moudon, A.V. (2002) 'Thinking about micro and macro urban morphology', Urban Morphology 6, 37-9.

Whitehead, A.N. and Russell, B. (1925) Principia Mathematica, 2nd edn, vol. 1 (Cambridge University Press, Cambridge).