Urban Design Reader：The morphological dimension.pdf

Section Two The morphological dimension TEAM LinG The morphological dimension 61 Appreciation of urban morphology – that is, the lay- that there are essentially two types of urban space out and configuration of urban form and the system, which can be referred to as ‘traditional’ and processes giving rise to them – helps urban designers ‘Modernist’. Traditional urban space consists of build- be aware of local patterns of development and ings as constituent parts of urban blocks, where the processes of change. Morphologists have shown that blocks define and enclose positive, external space – settlements could be seen in terms of several key ele- that is, ‘figural space’. Modernist urban space con- ments and, in addition, emphasised the difference ventionally consists of freestanding ‘pavilion’ (or in their temporal stability (e.g. Conzen, 1960). ‘object’) buildings in landscape settings – that is, ‘fig- Buildings, and particularly the land uses they accom- ural buildings’. Trancik’s chapter explains how modate, are usually the least resilient elements. Modernist ideas of urban space design, combined Although more enduring, the plot pattern also with development practices during the twentieth changes over time as plots are subdivided or amalga- century, created a phenomena he aptly describes as mated. The street or cadastral pattern tends to be the ‘lost’ space: ‘… individual buildings isolated in parking most enduring element. Many urban design writers lots and highways’ (Trancik, 1986: 21). Trancik’s have