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Connectivity, density and built form: integrating ´Spacemate´ with space

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ISUF 2015 XXII international Conference: City as organism. New visions for urban life

Connectivity, density and built form: integrating ´Spacemate´ with space syntax.

Meta Berghauser Pont

Chalmers University of Technology, Department of Architecture, SE-412 96 Gothenburg, Sweden,
[email protected], +46 73 4233637
Lars Marcus
Chalmers University of Technology, Department of Architecture, SE-412 96 Gothenburg, Sweden,
[email protected]

Keywords: density, network modelling, urban form, Spacemate, Space Syntax

Conference Topics and scale: Urban form and meaning, Urban fabric scale

Introduction: the landscape of urban morphology research

From a design theoretical perspective two aspects are important to the generation of new design proposals
and a successful design process (Hillier, 1996; Moudon, 1992). Firstly, generative or utopian theory is an
essential prerequisite where a typical case in point is the writings of Jane Jacobs, which, notwithstanding the
immense insights conveyed lack scientific foundations. This is not uncommon in theory in urbanism and is
the reason why it has been called a pseudo-science (Marshall, 2012). The problem is that equally essential
for the design process is analytical theory that concerns the actual effects of new proposals, or, its
performativity, which typically is far less developed. Gauthier and Gilliland (2006) classified urban
morphology studies to distinguish these two poles with on the one hand more generative, utopian or as they
call it, normative-prescriptive studies and on the other hand analytic, descriptive or following Levy’s (2005)
terminology, cognitive studies. We would rather see the two poles as a continuum from research, reflection
and knowledge to action and projection with performativity studies position in the intersection of the
‘cognitive’ and ‘normative’ cluster (see Figure 1).

A review of scientific publications addressing urban form’s role in environmental performativity, for
instance, shows not only an increasing interest since 2000 (Colding et al., in progress), but also shows that
the descriptions and measurements of urban form used in these studies are highly inconsistent, lacking
shared theoretical frameworks and terminologies. This, quoting Whitehand (2012, p. 60), disables the results
“to be connected so as to form the basis for a wider, integrated body of knowledge”. Further, a fine-grained
understanding of urban form, what can be called ‘the cognitive level of urban space’, that is, the level where
‘people in the street’ experience the city, is underdeveloped and results are therefore deemed unsatisfactory
for theoretical advancement of the field of urban design (Batty, 2008). Urban geographers (Talen, 2003),
spatial analysts (Kwan et al., 2003) and urban morphologists (Hillier, 1996), independently point out the lack
of knowledge on this scale of urban space.

Space-morphology is one of nine ‘areas of concentration’ within urban morphology recognized and
described by Moudon in her paper ‘A catholic approach to organizing what urban designers should know’
(Moudon, 1992) as the analytical approach within urban design research. Kropf (2009) categorized urban
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ISUF 2015 XXII international Conference: City as organism. New visions for urban life

morphology research and identified four different approaches that have emerged within urban morphology:
spatial analytical, configurational (or space syntax), process typological and historico-geographical. The first
two cover what Moudon (1992) described under the heading space-morphology as the latter two represent
the Italian respectively the English and French school (Moudon, 1997).

The focus of space-morphology is to “uncover the fundamental characteristics of urban geometries”

(Moudon, 1992, p. 343). As such, it comes close to what is called mathematical morphology in geostatistics
(Silin et al., 2003) and clearly fits the earlier described cognitive-descriptive cluster of Gauthier and Gilliland
(2006) as shown in Figure 1. We will present two examples of research that pick up this thread which,
Moudon argues, built on the seminal work of Martin and March presented in ‘the grid as generator’ (Martin
and March ,1972) and connect this to what is known as ‘space syntax’ research. Together these represent the
core of the two research directions within space-morphology identified by Moudon (1992). One might want
to add a third direction as Kropf (2009) suggests to also include the work of Michael Batty and the Centre for
Advanced Spatial Analysis (CASA) focusing on modelling and simulation. However, we see this direction
more as a branch in the tradition of ‘spatial modelling’ (e.g. Wilson 2000), with its origin in the models of
von Thünen (1826) and Christaller’s Central Place Theory (1933) than as a part of ‘urban morphology’.

With this paper we want to foreground space-morphology and with two examples we hope to show how this
approach can contribute to more performative studies within urban morphology and adjacent fields using
more advanced and life-like representations of urban form and through that contribute to the theoretical
advancement of the field of urban design. Below follows, firstly, a more general description of the two
directions within space-morphology to, secondly, present the two studies integrating both directions and
thirdly, some concluding words on how this can contribute to the theoretical advancement of the field of
urban design.

Space-morphology: towards an integrated analytic approach in ‘urban morphology’ using

mathematics
The first direction within space-morphology was formalized when Leslie Martin and Lionel March founded
the Centre for Land Use and Built Form Studies at Cambridge University after WWII, but the approach can
be dated back as far as 1867 when the Catalan engineer Ildefonso Cerda published his opus, the Teoria de la
urbanizacion. Also the work of CIAM (Congrès Internationaux d’Architecture Moderne), founded in 1928
at the initiative of Le Corbusier and Siegfried Gideon in La Sarraz, Switzerland, Raymond Unwin, member
of the Garden City Movement in England and Anton Hoenig in Germany in the early twentieth century are
exponents of this approach.

They all used mathematical reasoning to either measure ‘urban quality’ as Hoenig (1928) proposed with his
concept of spaciousness (Weitraumigkeit) or to show that it was cheaper to build in low densities as Unwin
(1912) did in his pamphlet ‘Nothing gained by Overcrowding’ (Berghauser Pont and Haupt, 2010). In the
book ‘Urban Space and Structure’, Martin and March (1972) argued, amongst many other things, that more
floor space could be realized in semi-detached housing types in the countryside than with high-rise buildings
in inner-city centres. The reasoning is that as the city expands with equal-width bands, the outer bands are
able to accommodate more built space than the inner bands. Le Corbusier, on the other hand, showed with
similar mathematical reasoning that a model for a Green City which combines plenty of open space, light,
sun and fresh air with land use efficiency and minimal distances travelled, only can be realised with high-rise
buildings. A more recent, and less normative, development in this field is the ‘Spacemate’ model developed
by Berghauser Pont and Haupt (2010).

The Spacemate model relates together four geometrical properties to segregate building types numerically:
density expressed as floor space index (FSI), ground coverage or ground space index (GSI), spaciousness
expressed as open space ratio (OSR) and number of storeys (L). Steadman (2013) provided further
theoretical explanation for Berghauser Pont and Haupt’s empirical findings by linking these to the work of
Martin and March.

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ISUF 2015 XXII international Conference: City as organism. New visions for urban life

The focus of these planners, architects and researchers is to uncover the fundamental characteristics of urban
geometries by quantifying the spatial elements and their relationships. In other words, they are interested in
uncovering the logic of space.

The other direction within space-morphology is based on the work of Bill Hillier and Julian Hanson and their
group at the Bartlett, also known as the ‘space syntax group’. They extended this search for the logic of
space to the social logic of space (Hillier and Hanson, 1984) as their aim was to “enrich the description of
built form in ways that express aspects of performance and function” (Peponis, 2014).

Of fundamental importance for this research direction is the development of the ‘axial map’, which is a map
constructed from the point of view of a cognitive subject, i.e. an experiencing and acting human being. The
axial map is made up of the least amount of straight lines that cover all accessible open space in the area of
analysis, where each straight line (here called ‘axial line’) in the map represents an urban space that is
possible to visually overlook and physically access. Thus, the axial map constitutes a network, defined on the
cognitive scale, of all accessible spaces in the urban area it represents, in which different properties of this
network are possible to measure. The reason for the success of the axial map in capturing for instance
pedestrian movement is likely to be its ability to geometrically capture both the energy effort and the
informational effort for a moving subject in an urban area, or as Hillier (2003) argued: If we make a straight
line crooked “we do not add significantly to the energy effort required to move along it, but we do add
greatly to the informational effort required” (ibid., p. 3).

Even though the two directions show similarities in their analytic approach using mathematics to unravel
patterns and relationships between spatial elements, there are also substantial differences of which the
following three are the most fundamental. The approach represented by Martin and March rather examines
the individual components of urban form and how these relate to one another, such as streets, plots and
buildings, while space syntax stresses the relative or systemic dimension of such components. Another
difference is that Martin and March defined urban elements from a conceived rather than perceived point of
view. For instance, the urban block, which typically is easy to identify on a map, actually is very difficult to
perceive in urban space. The morphological descriptions developed within space syntax on the other hand
typically have their rationale from the point of view of human perception and cognition. We here find a vital
characteristic to space syntax, namely its strong link to cognition science, but especially the ecological
approach to human perception developed by James Gibson (1979). Thirdly, Martin and March’s approach
focuses on urban form and its internal logic as space syntax typically is interested in the effects of urban
form on social processes.

The ‘systems approach’ and the particular distance measure related to human perception and cognition
developed in space syntax is likely to be the reason for the consistent correlations between space syntax
measures and pedestrian movement (Hillier and Iida 2005). However, it is also shown that in both rapidly
growing cities as in highly planned neighbourhoods, variations in movement cannot be explained by this
type of analysis alone (Netto et al., 2012; Ståhle, 2008; Ratti, 2004). We see therefore great potential in
integrating these two directions within space-morphology where the syntactic approach, typical for space
syntax is better in capturing the systemic properties of a place and Martin and March’s approach is better in
developing a typology of places and where space syntax is good at quantifying differences within areas of the
same type, but the other approach is better at classifying and quantifying differences between areas
(Berghauser Pont and Marcus, 2015). To so to speak ‘load’ the axial map with other attributes such as
population density has been important in the development of a separate branch within space syntax that has
been most prominent in the research group SAD in Stockholm where they even developed a software to do
just that: the Place Syntax Tool (Ståhle 2008)

We will use two recently published papers to show the potential of an integrated approach within space-
morphology. The first presents a method to measure density in such a way that it represents building types
for so called ‘walkable regions’, or, expressed differently, for areas one can reach on foot in let’s say 10
minutes when leaving your home or work address. The second presents a method to measure pedestrian
movement through measures of density and distance both in terms of their syntactic values and the
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ISUF 2015 XXII international Conference: City as organism. New visions for urban life

morphological types they represent. Further, we will use these methods to map the spatial patterns in
Stockholm to show how density, different building types and centrality are distributed and in turn show a
probable distribution of pedestrian flows. We use the statistical method of two-step-clustering available in
the software package SPSS i. The principle of this clustering technique is that it in a first step pre-clusters the
data using a sequential clustering approach based on the distance criterion. In the second step these sub-
clusters are input to define the desired number of clusters to map the density and movement patterns in
Stockholm. Since the number of sub-clusters is much less than the number of original records, traditional
clustering methods can be used, in this case the agglomerative hierarchical clustering method.

Case 1: mapping density patterns

Berghauser Pont and Haupt (2010) developed a classification system to distinguish different types of
buildings and neighbourhoods based on the distribution of density. They have shown that only by expressing
urban density through a composite of variables, Floor Space Index (FSI), Ground Space Index (GSI), Open
Space Ratio (OSR) and building height (L), can various morphological types be distinguished numerically ii.
Each spatial solution, high and spacious or low and compact, results in a unique combination of the density
variables and a unique position in the Spacemate diagram they developed. FSI on the y-axis gives an
indication of the built intensity in an area and GSI on the x-axis reflects the ground coverage, or
compactness, of the development. The OSR and L are gradients that fan out over the diagram (see Figure 2).
Earlier research by Berghauser Pont and Haupt (ibid.) shows that morphological types cluster in different
positions in the Spacemate diagram. The examples within the cluster marked with G in Figure 2 have, for
instance, both a high FSI and GSI and mostly contain mid-rise buildings of three to seven storeys enclosing a
yard, the ‘court type’ according to Marin and March (1972). Examples with both a low FSI and GSI (cluster
marked A) consist of low-rise detached houses with large gardens (the ‘pavilion type’). Examples in between
these two can be described as more linear developments (the ‘street type’) such as row houses up to three
storeys (cluster B), slabs of three to seven storeys (cluster E) or slabs higher than seven storeys (cluster H).
Steadman (2013) recently published a paper showing how the clustering Berghauser Pont and Haupt found
empirically with samples from the Netherlands, Germany and Spain, also holds on a theoretical level
referring back to the work of Martin and March, discussed earlier.

Berghauser Pont and Marcus (2014) have found indications that by adding the accessibility measures to the
density equation, directly borrowed from the other direction within space-morphology, and using the axial
line to measure distance, one is able to include the cognitive experience of a person moving through urban
space and the associated experience of variations in density and building type. This is a promising example
of how the integration of the two directions within space-morphology enable us to map what can be called
perceived density.

Figure 2 shows the density clusters that resulted from the clustering analysis in Stockholm using the two-
step-clustering in SPSS both on the map as well as projected in the Spacemate diagram. The input variables
for the clustering were the density variables accessible FSI, accessible GSI and L as described in Berghauser
Pont and Marcus (2014). The map shows five clusters with significant combinations of FSI, GSI, OSR and
L. The cluster 2 and 5, for instance, have similar building heights, but represent distinct building types:
cluster 5 is of the ‘court type’ with a relative high GSI and FSI and cluster 2 is of the ‘street type’ with a
relative low GSI and FSI. In other words, it is the combination of variables that enables us to distinguish
building types. Moreover, the clusters on the map represent areas that one perceives as being of similar
character when walking through your local neighbourhood, measured from each address point
independently. This results in a density that reflects not only the density of an address, a plot or an
administrative neighbourhood, but it captures the density within the walkable ‘region’ defined with a fixed
distance threshold, in this case 3 turns (i.e. axial steps) with a maximum length of 500 meters iii. In other
words, these regions are defined from a perceived rather than a conceived point of view making the results
more relevant from the point of view of a person experiencing the area. This also explains why some clusters
on the map are larger in size than others and changes in density are smoother. If you live in a villa, the
density experience is different for a person living in a villa neighbouring an apartment building from a
person living in a villa that is surrounded by other villa’s.

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ISUF 2015 XXII international Conference: City as organism. New visions for urban life

Most importantly, this sets a new principal frame that opens up for a series of other patterns representing
density for other distances such as perceived density for walking versus perceived density when biking. In
extension, there is the possibility to also construct analyses based on the perception and cognition of other
species than humans. This could prove highly interesting for the analysis of urban ecosystem services. A test
in this direction has been conducted for bumblebees and the ecosystem service pollination in highly
urbanised areas (Marcus, Berghauser Pont, Gren 2014).

Besides the possibility of measuring what could be called walkable or bikable density, or density perceived
from any other travel mode, this approach is also highly interesting for a comprehensive problem inherent to
all measures of urban density and many other geographic descriptions: the modifiable areal unit problem
(MAUP). In short, it concerns the problem of the delimitation of spatial units and how this impacts the result
of the analysis. Larkham and Morton (2011) have discussed this issue extensively, but what is of interest
here is that the introduction of the distance measure in the delimitation process includes the user’s
perspective and defines the boundaries via the position of a location in the city and what is possible to
‘reach’ from there at different radii, why the boundary problem in the traditional sense disappears (see for a
more extensive discussion Berghauser Pont and Marcus, 2014).

Case 2: mapping movement patterns

A long series of space syntax studies around the world have found strong correlations between integration
and pedestrian movement that is, one can say, the most generic aspect of urban space use (Hillier and Iida
2005). Moreover, a large body of research (e.g. Greene et al. 2012, Koch et al. 2009) has found correlations
between urban form and other urban phenomena, where movement works as the intermediary such as crime
and social segregation. However, the predictive power varies depending on the type of neighbourhood as
several scholars have pointed out (e.g. Netto et al., 2012; Ståhle, 2008; Ratti, 2004). Ratti (ibid.) questions
whether what Hillier calls “the hidden role of geometry in cities” (Hillier, 1999, p.182) applies to all cities
and if not, which are the conditions under which space syntax analysis can be used?

The explanation for the different patterns of movement in planned, naturally grown and rapidly growing
cities is, according to Netto et al. (2012), that dissonances between patterns of accessibility, density, and
activity are at work impacting the patterns of movement (see Figure 3). The process of alignment, that is, the
tendency of certain states in one pattern to match specific states in other patterns, is by Hillier reduced to the
‘multiplier effects’ of the street network. Netto et al. (ibid.) describe a more dynamic and complex
dependence between these patterns where convergence and dissonance interplay in time. Berghauser Pont
and Marcus (2015) have shown that the way a neighbourhood is planned impacts the process of alignment
between patterns. Where shopping centres or public transport nodes, for instance, are located in dissonance
with the street network and changes over time are costly and often restricted through zoning laws, the
process of convergence is disturbed. We can imagine that in such cases, the movement pattern follows
activity locations such as local centres or subway stations more than that it follows the street pattern.

To verify this, three areas in Stockholm were studied: City/Norrmalm, Södermalm and Högdalen,
representing both a variety of street morphologies and density types but also following different planning
paradigms. A description of the areas can be found in the paper ‘What can typology explain that
configuration can not?’ presented at the 10th space syntax symposium in London (Berghauser Pont and
Marcus, 2015).

For two central measures within space syntax, Berghauser Pont and Marcus (ibid.) found that betweenness
centrality is a more robust measure than closeness centralityiv in predicting pedestrian movement in areas of
different morphological character. The closeness measure calculates the least mean distance cost from each
line segment (or axial line) to all others in a system (Hillier and Hanson, 1984). This measure thus shows, for
each and every line, how many steps (measured topologically) you are away from all other lines. The
betweenness measure shows how often a line segment is part of the shortest path between all pairs of
segments in a system. In other words, line segments that are needed more often when moving through the
city have a higher betweenness value than those that are not so often used. Taking such a segment out of the
system will affect a lot of routes that cannot be chosen anymore. The lines with a high betweenness can thus
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ISUF 2015 XXII international Conference: City as organism. New visions for urban life

be said to be more important for the functioning of the system. A striking difference between these two
measures can be observed on maps where closeness ranges tend to cluster while betweenness ranges are
scattered over the urban system. Further, Berghauser Pont and Marcus (2015) show that the most effective
radius for the analysis varies between different neighbourhood types, which indicates that neighbourhoods
seem to ‘operate’ at different scales. Further, the walking behaviour in neighbourhoods that are highly
planned are more sensitive to the distribution of density and attractions than more grid-like neighbourhoods.
Despite these differences, they also show that a good first indication of pedestrian movement patterns can be
captured with two relative simple measures. The relative pedestrian intensity can be predicted using the
accessible density (FSI) measure and the distribution of pedestrians can be forecasted with the attraction
betweenness measure at a radius of 1 km. These two rather simple measures of density and distance can
explain 40% of pedestrian movement (ibid.). To map the pattern of movement in Stockholm we used these
results in the two-step-clustering described earlier. The input variables are the same as those used for the
density clustering, but now the attraction betweenness measure is added to the analysis which is shown to be
important for the distribution of pedestrians in each density cluster.

Figure 4 shows the variations in attraction betweenness within each density cluster for Stockholm as a whole
and for the three neighbourhoods City/Norrmalm, Södermalm and Högdalen separately. As described earlier,
this variance in density and distance explains the distribution of pedestrians between and within each area. It
should be repeated, however, that this only shows a prediction of pedestrian movement based on
observations in three neighbourhoods in Stockholm where these measures explained ‘only’ 40% of the
distribution of pedestrian flows. The addition of other measures such as closeness centrality, accessible floor
space and distance to local centres increases the predictive power of the model (see for a more extensive
discussion Berghauser Pont and Marcus, 2015.

Discussion: Two research communities joining forces

With this paper we wanted to foreground space-morphology and with two examples show how this approach
can contribute to the theoretical advancement of the field of urban design. A better understanding of ‘how
the built environment works’ and ‘how built environments significantly differ’ can be arrived at by
developing such multi-dimensional descriptions of urban form combining the two directions within space-
morphology. The combined approach presented here takes us a step (and only one step) towards
understanding the performativity of urban form. The urban form data with both a high spatial resolution and
a strong link to cognitive science can further be used in other fields to increase the relevance of their findings
for the field of urban design where interventions take place at the architectural scale and not at the more
abstract geographical scale.

If you like, this paper can be interpreted as an argument to join forces between the two research communities
‘urban morphology’ and ‘space syntax’ which both have organised conferences for around 20 years now. It
might be time for a joined conference where both parts present the possibilities of an integrated approach to
increase our understanding of cities and so contribute to the unprecedented expectations on cities, which
increasingly, are seen as the means to the solution of problems such as climate change, social segregation
and loss of biodiversity, rather than the root of the problem. This creates knowledge demands that we are
currently not prepared for, but where space-morphology can play an important role providing more advanced
measures of urban form, integrated analytic methods including both the understanding of the separate parts,
the relations between the parts and their role in the system as a whole.

References
Batty, M. (2008) ‘The Size, Scale, and Shape of Cities’, Science, 319 (5864), 769 – 771.
Berghauser Pont, M. and Haupt, P., 2010. Spacematrix. Space, density and urban form (NAi Publishers,
Rotterdam).
Berghauser Pont, M. and Marcus, L. (2014), ‘Innovations in measuring density: from area density and
location density to accessible and perceived density’. Nordic Journal of Architectural Research, 2, 11-31.
Berghauser Pont, M. and Marcus, L. (2015) ‘What Can Typology Explain That Configuration Can Not?’
Proceedings of the 10th International Space Syntax Symposium (forthcoming).

Rome, September, 22nd-26th 2015, Faculty of Architecture, “Sapienza” University of Rome, Italy
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ISUF 2015 XXII international Conference: City as organism. New visions for urban life

Gauthier, P. and Gilliland, J. (2006) ‘Mapping urban morphology: a classification scheme for interpreting
contributions to the study of urban form’, Urban Morphology, 10(1).
Greene, M, Reyes, J, Castro, A. (2012), Proceedings of the 7th International Space Syntax Symposium
(Pontefica Universidad Catholica de Chile).
Hillier, B. & Hanson, J., 1984, Social Logic of Space, Cambridge University Press.
Hillier, B., 1996, Space is the Machine, Cambridge University Press.
Hillier, B. (2003) ‘The Architectures of seeing and going: Or, are Cities Shaped by Bodies or Minds? And is
there a Syntax of Spatial Cognition?’ Proceedings of the 4th International Symposium in Space Syntax, UCL
London, 06:1-34.
Hillier, B. and Iida, S. (2005), ‘Network and psychological effects in urban movement’. Proceedings of the
Fifth International Space Syntax Symposium, Delft: University of Technology.
Koch D, Marcus L, Steen J, 2009, Proceedings of the 7th International Space Syntax Symposium (Trita-Ark
KTH).
Kropf, K. (2009) ‘Aspects of urban form’, Urban Morphology, 13(2), 105-120.
Kwan, M-P. and Weber, J. (2003) ‘Individual accessibility revisited: implications for geographical analysis
in the twenty-first century’, Geographical Analysis, 35, 341-353.
Larkham, P.J. and Morton, N. (2011) ‘Drawing lines on maps: morphological regions and planning
practices’, Urban Morphology, 15(2).
Marcus, L., Berghauser Pont, M., Gren, Å. (2014) “Can spatial form support urban ecosystem services:
Developing descriptions and measures to capture the spatial demands for pollination using the framework of
space syntax”, ITU A/Z, 11:2, 255-270.
Marshall, S. (2012) ‘Science, pseudo-science and urban design’ Urban Design International, 17, 257-271.
Martin, L. and March, L. (1972), Urban space and structures (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press).
Moudon, A.V. (1992) ‘Getting to Know the Built Landscape: Typomorphology’, in K. Franck and L.
Schneekloth (ed.) Ordering Space: Types in Architecture and Design (Van Nostrand Reinhold, New York)
289-311.
Moudon, A. (1997), ‘Urban morphology as an emerging interdisciplinary field’ Urban morphology, 1, 3-10.
Netto, V., Sabayo, R., Vargas, J., Figueiredo, L., Freitas, C. and Pinheiro. M. (2012), ‘The convergence of
patterns in the city: (Isolating) the effects of architectural morphology on movement and activity’.
Proceedings of the eighth International Space Syntax Symposium (Santiago de Chile: PUC).
Peponis, J. (2014) ‘Investigative Modeling and Spatial Analysis: A commentary of directions’, Paper
presented at the Research Workshop at KTH, part of the project RIBS, FP7/2007-2013.
Ratti, C. (2004), ‘Urban texture and space syntax: some inconsistencies’. Environment and planning B, 31,
487-499.
Steadman, P. (2013) ‘Density and built form: integrating «Spacemate» with the work of Martin and March’
Environment and Planning B: Planning and Design 40, 341−358.
Ståhle, A. (2008) Compact Sprawl: Exploring Public Open Space and Contradictions in Urban Density
(Stockholm: KTH dissertation).
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Whitehand, J. (2012) ‘Issues in urban morphology’, Urban Morphology, 16(1), 55-65.

Captions: (insert max 4 images JPEG 300 dpi as separate files)

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ISUF 2015 XXII international Conference: City as organism. New visions for urban life

Figure 1. An overview of the categorization of urban morphology research, based on Gauthier and Gilliland (2006, p.
46) and Moudon (1992).

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Figure 2. Density patterns based on the cluster analysis in SPSS using accessible FSI, accessible GSI and L as input
variables and the same clusters projected in the Spacemate model. The clusters capture besides variations in the density
variables also variations in building types such as the court, street and pavilion type. (see for a more extensive
discussion Berghauser Pont and Marcus, 2014; Steadman, 2013; Berghauser Pont and Haupt, 2010)

Figure 3. Relations of urban patterns of different materialities, roles and temporalities (left) and a hypothesis of
convergence of these patterns (right): interrelations and mutual dependences would lead to progressive convergence in
time following the theory of natural movement of Hillier. (Netto et al. 2012, p. 8167:4-5)

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 ISUF 2015 XXII international Conference: City as organism. New visions for urban life

Figure 4. Movement patterns based on the cluster analysis in SPSS using attraction betweenness as extra input variable
within each density cluster as was shown in Figure 2.

i
SPSS (Statistical Package for the Social Sciences) is a software package used for statistical analysis. The original
SPSS manual was published in 1970 by Bie, Bent and Hull.
ii
For definitions of these density variables, see Berghauser Pont and Haupt (2010), p. 107-114.
iii
This distance proved to best capture what was defined as ‘urban fabric’ in Berghauser Pont and Haupt’s (2010)
original work.
iv
Referred to as ‘choice’ and ‘integration’ in many space syntax studies, but in network modelling, referred to as
‘closeness centrality’ and ‘betweenness centrality’ respectively (Hillier and Iida, 2005).

Rome, September, 22nd-26th 2015, Faculty of Architecture, “Sapienza” University of Rome, Italy
http://rome2015.isufitaly.com

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