Urban Design

LECTURE 4
The Morphological Dimension

Abhishek K. Venkitaraman
Assistant Professor
Urban morphology

Factors Influencing Urban Morphology

- Site factors
- Historical and cultural factors
- Functional factors
- Government influence
- Social values
- Economic forces
*economic circulation
*economic accessibility / urban land rents
MORPHOLOGY
Line breaks: morph|ology
THE STUDY OF THE FORMS OF THINGS
Origin
Mid 19th century: from Greek morphē 'form' + -logy.

URBAN MORPHOLOGY
THE STUDY OF THE FORM AND SHAPE OF
SETTLEMENTS
 Development patterns
 Process of Change
Urban morphology – the study of change in the physical form and shape of settlements over
time – focuses on patterns and processes of growth and change.

Differences in street and block patterns, plot patterns, the arrangement of buildings within
plots and the shapes of buildings create very different environments – the different patterns
are commonly referred to as ‘urban tissue’ (Caniggia & Maffel 1979, 1984).
How form of the city changes?

BHOPAL- CHRONOLOGICAL DEVELOPMENT

Growth of
Roorkee
Chronological growth of the town
Comparison of growth

1970 2012
 Growth of a City
The growth of a city takes place in different stages. Some cities grow so rapidly that it
will be difficult to recognize them after few decades.

New York in 1851 was a fine and spacious city. Situated in the bank of East and Hudson
river it had three to four storied terraced houses.

But in 1951, the three and four storied flats gave way to skyscrapers. Only the streets remain
unchanged.

Similar is the case with the Birmingham, which expanded fast due to industrial establishments.

Toronto has also made the same mistakes that the other big cities have made.

One can see urban jungle in San Paulo also. But San Francisco is an exception due to the construction
of satellite city across the river, overdevelopment cannot be seen in this city. It has thus retained its
character.

Chicago is a city which is portrayed as a technological success but a planning failure.

Growth of towns
Growth of town can be classified in two ways
• Growth according to Origin
• Growth according to Direction
Growth according to Origin:

• Natural Growth- Not preplanned development, developed as matter of chance;

• Possibly could be a result of evolution rather than a pre-thought or preplanned
development;
• Primary factors for the natural growth are availability of fresh water, rich soil,
immediate comfort and convenience of the people
• Concentric Spread ,
• Satellite Growth,
• Ribbon Development and
• Scattered Growth;

• Planned Growth
The town develops on pre-determined line as prepared by the town planner -
Development in a orderly manner;

Planned growth can be understood through 2 points

1) Selection of site for the town;
2) Features to be embodied in the plan
Natural Growth
Concentric Spread:
• Here the town develops in the form of concentric rings
• Resulting from improper houses, concentration of the people in the heart of
the town, congestion of the traffic and accidents
Satellite Growth:
• The satellite growth implies dependency on the parent city but still
possessing its town identity;
• When a town reaches a certain size, satellite devolution must take place, to
break the suburban sprawl beyond that size;
• Since its periphery falls away from the heart of the parent city, it becomes
less convenient and uncomfortable for the distant people
Ribbon Development:
• Ribbon development is in the form of a ribbon or line, i.e. a single row of houses
along the bus stops, bus routes, railway station or highways;
• It happens specially in newly developing towns where rules and zoning regulations
have not been strictly enforced;
• Ribbon development has become a regular feature where we find over crowding
of all types of building such as school, factories, petrol pumps.

Disadvantages of Ribbon Development:

• Advantage for the frontage of the main road
leaving the interior undeveloped and causes
wastage of valuable land;
• Leads to over crowding of the road and,
streets become narrow and give rise to
accidents;
• All types of buildings grow at the frontage,
some times affect health conditions;
• Town spreads far and wide, becomes costly
to maintain and future developments are
very costly;
Scattered Growth
Town shows erratic growth, expands in a
very irregular manner; It results into traffic
congestion, slums and lack of
open spaces;

Leapfrog Development
• Leapfrogging occurs when developers jump
from one built-up area to another, leaving a
large, undeveloped space of land or forest in
between.
• This can occur because of the city's zoning
laws.
• The problem with leapfrogging is that
transportation between the two developed
areas often becomes dependent on driving
rather than walking or biking.
Growth According to Direction
• The growth of towns considering the direction takes place in two ways:
1) Horizontal Growth; 2) Vertical Growth

• Horizontal Growth- City can grow horizontally in all directions, to accommodate the growing population.
Horizontal growth is economical at places where land price is cheap;

• Vertical Growth- City grows vertically which is done by adding more floors to the existing building or by
constructing high rise or multistoried buildings. This type of development is suitable where the land value is
high;
1) Horizontal Growth:
Advantages:
• Economic building construction
• Does not require high technical personnel
• Possible to have roof ventilation and maximum use of roof lighting
• Density of population is generally low
• Marginal space around the building could be used for garden

Disadvantages:
• It requires more land for the same space area
• The construction cost rises as foundation area increases
• It is uneconomical where the land is costly
• There is absence of group living
2) Vertical Growth:
Advantages:
• Over all construction cost reduces because less expenses in foundation
• Lot of land saving where land is costly
• Increased green space around the building
• Encourages a sense of group living
Disadvantages:
• Fire safety, earthquake issues, heavy dependence on mechanized vertical transportation
system in building
• Alteration in microclimate
• Density of population is very high
 Morphological Elements:
1. Land uses - Changes to land uses include both new uses coming in
and existing uses moving to other areas.

2. Building structures - There has often been a recognisable cycle of

building development on each plot.

3. Plot pattern - Cadastral units (urban blocks) are typically

subdivided or ‘platted’ into plots or lots. These may be ‘back-to-
back’ plots, each having a frontage onto a main street or
circulation route and a shared or common plot boundary at the
rear.

4. Cadastral (street) pattern - The cadastral pattern is the layout of

urban blocks and public space/movement channels between those
blocks. The spaces between the blocks can be considered to be
the public space network.
Elements which change:
LEAST RESILIENT

 LAND USE
 BUILDING STRUCTURE
 PLOT PATTERN
 CADASTRAL (STREET) PATTERN MOST RESILIENT
Cadastral pattern is the layout of Urban Blocks
and, between them, the public space/ movement
network.
The blocks define the space and the space
defines the block
Neighborhood Status

32
Buildings as constituent
elements in Urban block
- Spatial Coherence

Buildings as freestanding
pavilions in amorphous space.
-Monumental buildings
-Arbitrary and disconnected
individual features
URBAN GRAIN
The balance of open space to built form, and the nature and extent of subdividing an area
into smaller parcels or blocks. For example a ‘fine urban grain’ might constitute a network of
small or detailed streetscapes.

It takes into
consideration the
hierarchy of street
types, the physical
linkages and movement
between locations, and
modes of transport
GRAIN
FINE: composed
of small sized
street blocks
COARSE: with
fewer larger
blocks

TEXTURE
EVEN
UNEVEN
Von Meiss contends that a fundamental problem of the
twentieth century urbanization has been the
multiplication of ‘objects’ and the neglect of ‘fabrics’.

Cities slowly tended to lose their spatial coherence, becoming a

series of unrelated and competing or isolated monuments and
small complexes of buildings surrounded by roads, parking
and landscaping… FRACTURING OF SPACE
 Regular and Deformed Grids:
Regular or 'ideal grids :

characterised by geometric regularity.

they are typically planned and have some
degree of geometric discipline.
due to the ease of laying out streets, the
most basic planned layouts have generally
been rectilinear and many settlements with
regular or semi-regular grids exist.

'Deformed' grids:
characterised by apparent irregularity.
the cores of pre-industrial cities tend to
have ‘deformed’ grids.
generally based on pedestrian movement
and strongly influenced by topography,
they were integral parts of the immediate
area, rather than through-routes, and
evolved and developed through use.
An important Urban Design quality established by
the cadastral pattern is that of PERMEABILITY

Visual Permeability
Physical Permeability
Railroad Suburbs

Railroads appeared about the time of the Civil

War and they changed the shape of cities. The
speed of the railroad allowed people (If they
couldn't afford the fare) to live in "ideal" small
towns built beyond the limits of the crowded
organic city in which people worked.

Features of these dormitory towns include

larger lots than in the city, stores near the
railroad station, and curving streets with names
that have rural/romantic connotations:
Greenfield, Briarcliff, Idyllwylde, etc.
Streetcar Grids

Streetcars, at first pulled by horses and

later driven by electric motors helped to
shape cities in the late 1800's.

They allowed access to residential

areas along major routes, which were
often spaced a mile or half-mile apart in a
square grid. Stores and apartment buildings
line the main roads, while blocks of narrow
houselots fill the less valuable land far from
the streetcar lines.

Numbered or lettered streets and avenues

are typical, especially in those parts of the
cities that were being urbanized at a very
rapid rate.
The City Beautiful
Wide boulevards going diagonally through a
rectangular grid are the hallmarks of this
design, which was a deliberate attempt to
overcome the dullness of the streetcar city.

The avenues focus on public buildings

and pedestrian squares with statues or
monuments at strategic locations.
Unfortunately plans for the city beautiful were
expensive as well as imaginative and
therefore most of them were never finished,
though nearly every major American city has a
few districts.
Bungalow Grids

Compared with the earlier grids, the bungalow

districts have lower population densities,
larger lots, and elongated blocks,
often with alleys behind the closely
spaced single-family houses and
duplexes.
Tract Suburbs
After World War II, increasingly
affluent commuters demanded
better transportation in the form
of radial freeways (through old urban
areas to city centers)
andbypasses (around cities and railroad
towns.) The automobile suburbs
featured rectangular street patterns
with partially restricted access to the
major highways.

Blocks and houselots tend to be

larger and more square than in
bungalow districts; commercial strips
are common along the major roads; and
stree names often change at suburb
boundaries.
Rectilinear Grid Iron Pattern
Rectilinear Grid Iron Pattern
Curvilinear City
Cul-de-sac pattern
FIGURE GROUND ANALYSIS OF OLD CITY OF GHAZIABAD

FIGURE GROUND ANALYSIS Lack of green

spaces & Poor
Maintenance of
existing green
Image Source: Author spaces

TYPICAL NARROW LANES Observations:

COLORFUL,OLD SHOPS The buildings are densely packed with little or no space between them.
There are some open abandoned spaces which can be developed into potential urban
CENTRE OF WHOLESALE spaces.
& RETAIL Apart from the abandoned spaces, there is a lack of open spaces in the study area which
leads to visual chaos and deterioration.
There is no particular movement axis.
Theories in Morphology
Figure-ground Theory: relationship between
building mass and open space; analyzes textures
and patterns of urban fabric; and spatial order.
Linkage Theory: Dynamics of circulation as
generators of urban form; connection and
movement.
Place Theory: Importance of historic, cultural, and
social values in urban open space; contextualist’s
angle.
Figure Ground Theories
The figure-ground theory is founded on the study of the relative land coverage of

Solid masses: (“figure”) (buildings)

Open voids: (”ground”) (parks, streets, squares)

A predominant “field” of solids and voids creates the urban fabric.

The figure-ground approach to spatial design is an attempt to manipulate the

solid-void relationships by adding to, subtracting from, or changing the physical
geometry of the pattern.

The figure-ground drawing is a graphic tool for illustrating mass-void relationships;

a two dimensional Abstraction in plan view that clarifies the structure and order
of urban spaces.
Urban Solids:
• Public Monuments or institutions
(Ziggurat, Pyramid, Gothic or
Baroque Churches etc.)
• Urban Blocks (Krier’s mission is to
reconstruct the traditional urban
block as the definer of streets and
square)
• Edge-defining Buildings -establish
an edge of the district- (Berlage’s
Housing district in Amsterdam, 1915)
Urban Voids:
Entry foyer space –establishes the important
transition from personal domain to common
territory- (fore court, mews, niche, lobby, front
yard)
Inner block void –a semi private residential
space for leisure or utility- (courtyard and
covered passage)
Network of streets and squares –places to
spend time in and corridors through which to
move-
Public parks and gardens –nodes for the
preservation of nature in the city, places for
recreation-
Linear open-space system commonly related to
major water features such as rivers, waterfronts,
and wetland zones
 The objective of these manipulations is to clarify the structure of urban spaces in a city or
district by establishing a hierarchy of spaces of different sizes that are individually en-
closed but ordered directionally in relation to each other.

A predominant "field" of solids and voids creates this urban pattern, often called the
fabric, and is punctuated by object buildings and spaces, such as major landmarks or open
spaces that provide focal points and subcenters within the field.

The figure-ground drawing is a graphic tool for illustrating mass-void relationships; a two-
dimensional abstraction in plan view that clarifies the structure and order of urban spaces.
Istanbul
Paris from Above
Berlin from Above
 Linkages Theory
Linkage theory is derived from “lines” connecting one element to another.

These lines are formed by streets, pedestrian ways, linear open spaces, or
other linking elements that psychically connect the parts of a city.

The designer applying the linkage theory tries to organize a system of

connections, or a network, that establishes a structure for ordering spaces.

Emphasis is placed on circulation diagram rather than the spatial diagram of

the figure-ground theory.

Movement systems and the efficiency of infrastructure take precedence over

patterns of defined outdoor space.
Constantinople, reconstruction of the city’s
appearance in the 9th-11th centuries,showing
the string of forums.
 Place Theories
The place theory adds the components of human needs and cultural, historical,
and natural contexts.

Advocates of the place theory give physical space additional richness by

incorporating unique forms and details indigenous to its setting.

In place theory social and cultural values, visual perceptions, of users and an
individual’s control over public environment are as important as principles of
enclosure and linkage
Source: http://www.slideshare.net/ceptwebmaster/janwani-lap-jm-rd
DEFORMED GRID
TRADITIONAL

MODERN
 CHANGE OF MOVEMENT SYSTEM

HIERARCHY OF ROAD NETWORK

CAR AS COLONIZER OF PUBLIC SPACE

INTRODUCTION OF
CUL-DE-SACS
Queensway
in Birmingham
 POD DEVELOPMENTS
A further transformation in the
morphological structure of urban areas is
that from outward facing urban blocks to
inward- focused complexes.

 
• PROVIDES QUIETER • LACK OF
AND SAFE STREETS INTERCONNECTEDN
ESS
• PROMOTES • CREATES CAR
RESIDENT DEPENDENCY
INTERACTION
• PROVIDES A LOCAL • ENHANCES
SENSE OF IDENTITY OPPORTUNITIES
FOR CRIME
• REDUCES • LACK OF IDENTITY
OPPORTUNITIES AND CHARACTER
FOR CRIME
SHARED STREETS
The shared street layout gives pedestrians primary
rights, so that, sensing they are intruding into a
pedestrian zone, motorists drive more cautiously

TRAFFIC CALMING

STREET RECLAIMING
Traditional focus was given to road design:
•More infrastructure for cars WHY
•More space for motorized vehicles SUSTAINABLE TRANSPORT?
•Unsustainable focus
HOW TO ENCOURAGE SUSTAINABLE TRANSPORT SYSTEM?

WALKING

?
PUBLIC TRANSPORT
CYCLING

FEEDER
SYSTEMS

?
 Consider how best the site can The typical cul -de- sac response
be connected with nearby creates an introverted layout,
main routes and public which fails to integrate with the
transport facilities surroundings

This street pattern then

forms the basis
for perimeter blocks,
which ensure that
buildings contribute
positively to the
A more pedestrian-friendly approach that public realm
integrates with the surrounding community
links existing and proposed streets, and
provides direct links to bus stops
 Ballard Estate,
Mumbai

PERIMETER BLOCKS
Ref: URBAN DESIGN: A TYPOLOGY OF PROCEDURES AND
PRODUCTS- Jon Lang (pg-208)
SERIAL VISION
• Sequence of revelations.
• Manipulate the elements of town so that impact on emotions is achieved.
• To walk from one end of the plan to another at a uniform pace will provide a
sequence of surprise. so an impact is made on eye.