Classifying urban form at a national scale

The case of Great Britain
Martin Fleischmann
Dani Arribas-Bel
[@martinfleis]
[@darribas]

Scaling morphological studies

… can be daunting

Traditional schools

… (almost) cannot scale

Conzen (1960), Caniggia & Maffei (1979)

Space Syntax

… can scale but offers limited insights

Space Syntax OpenMapping (2018)

Morphometric approaches

… are trying to find a way

Araldi & Fusco (2019), Berghauser Pont et al. (2019), Jochem et al. (2020), Fleischmann et al. (2021)

Opportunities

Spatial Signatures

A characterisation of space based on form and function designed to understand urban environments

A characterisation of space based on form and function designed to understand urban environments

A characterisation of space based on form and function designed to understand urban environments

A characterisation of space based on form and function designed to understand urban environments

Spatial Signatures

Form

One of the two components of Spatial Signatures

Qualitative, quant. case studies, morphometrics, remotely sensed

Ordnance Survey Open Data

building footprints + street network
… can be a bit limited.

(c) Ordnance Survey, (c) OpenStreetMap

Spatial Unit

Enclosed tessellation

How can we describe it…

… numerically?

Urban morphometrics

“quantitative analysis of urban form”

All about measuring.

Measuring

dimension
shape
spatial distribution
intensity
connectivity
diversity

Enclosed Tessellation
Embedding measurements
Clustering

Context

Every piece of information is considered within its spatial context

Enclosed Tessellation
Embedding measurements
Clustering

Results

19 classes in 3 main groups

countryside
low density development
dense city centres

Liverpool - Manchester

Liverpool - Manchester

Liverpool - Manchester

Liverpool - Manchester

Birmingham

Birmingham

Birmingham

Birmingham

London

London

London

London

Concentric character of British centers and centre hierarchy

London

Birmingham, Edinburgh

Southampton, Oxford

Milton Keynes

… does not have a (morphological) centre

To take away

  1. Urban morphology can be scaled
  2. Form component of Spatial Signatures: classification of urban form in detail, at scale
  3. Good measurement → better understanding

Classifying urban form at a national scale

The case of Great Britain
Martin Fleischmann
Dani Arribas-Bel
[@martinfleis]
[@darribas]