Urban Morphology in Urban Design

Abstract

Urban design engages urban morphology when the questions of where and why are paramount—that is, where and why a building or site needs to be designed, a landscape enhanced, a street calmed, or a garden planted. This framework for teaching and practicing urban design is fundamentally different from an orientation that stresses balance, texture, and composition, which are the pre-occupations of urban design that is more focused on a single block or specific site. This chapter explores the significance of urban morphology in the teaching and practice of urban design. It lays out examples of showing how urban morphology informs and improves urban design pedagogy, underlying an approach that is analytically straightforward, incremental in approach, and directed by sustainability principles.