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Urban spatial form influences the social, economic, and ecological development modes of the city. The spatial form during the urbanization of Hanjiang River Basin in Southern Shaanxi needs to be studied. In this study, research methodologies on urban spatial form in China and abroad were summarized. The concept of ecology background was applied, and the research framework for urban spatial form, which integrated the background, framework, core, axis, cluster, and skin, was established. Valley cities in the Hanjiang River Basin in Southern Shaanxi were classified into wide valley, narrow valley, and canyon cities. The spatial form characteristics of these three types of valley cities were discussed. A case study based on a typical city-Yang County-was conducted to discuss the characteristics of the aforementioned six elements of urban spatial form. Finally, spatial form characteristics were summarized. These characteristics provide a basis for the study of the small valley urban spatial form in the Hanjiang River Basin in Southern Shaanxi.

The sheer complexity and unpredictability characterising cities challenges the adequacy of existing disciplinary knowledge and tools in urban design and highlights the necessity to incorporate explicitly the element of change and the dimension of time in the understanding of, and intervention on, the form of cities. To this regard the concept of resilience is a powerful lens through which to understand and engage with a changing world. However, resilience is currently only superficially addressed by urban designers, and an explicit effort to relate elements of urban form to resilience principles is still lacking. This represents a great limit for urban designers, as the physical dimension of cities is the matter they work with in the first place. In this paper, we combine established knowledge in urban morphology and resilience theory. We firstly look at resilience theory and consistently define five proxies of resilience in urban form, namely diversity, redundancy, modularity, connectivity and efficiency. Secondly, we discuss the configuration of, and interdependencies between, several constituent elements of the physical city, as defined in urban morphology and design, in light of the mentioned five proxies. Finally, we conduct this exploration at five scales that are relevant to urban morphology and design: plot, street edge, block, street and sanctuary area / district.

This paper examines the impact of urban form on disaster resiliency. The literature shows a complex relationship between urban form factors such as density and diversity and disaster recovery. The empirical analysis in this paper tests the impact of land use mix, population density, building type and diversity on the reconstruction progress in three, six and nine months after the 2010 flood in Brisbane and Ipswich as proxies of disaster resilience. Considerable debate exists on whether urban form factors are the causal incentive or are they mediating other non-urban form causal factors such as income level. In view of this, the effects of a series of established non-urban form factors such as income and tenure, already known as effective factors on disaster resilience, are controlled in the analysis.

The structure of this paper is based on a two-phase research approach. In the first phase, for identification of hypothetical relationships between urban form and disaster resiliency, information was gathered from different sources on the basis of theory and past research findings. Then in phase two, a database was developed to test these hypothetical relationships, employing statistical techniques (including multivariate regression and correlation analysis) in which disaster recovery was compared among 76 suburbs of Brisbane and Ipswich with differing levels of population density and land use mix.

The results indicate that population density is positively related to disaster resilience, even when controlling for contextual variables such as income level and home ownership. The association between population density and disaster reconstruction is non-linear. The progress of reconstruction to population density ratio increases from low, medium to high densities, while in very low and very high density areas the reconstruction progress does not show the same behavior, which suggests that medium-high density is the most resilient.

The originality of this paper is in extracting hypothetical relationships between urban form and resiliency and testing them with real world data. The results confirmed the contribution of density to recovery process in this case study. This illustrates the importance of attention to disaster resiliency measures from the early stages of design and planning in development of resilient urban communities.

The purpose of this paper is to examine spatiality of transitions by combining aspects of urban form to policy analysis. It aims to increase understanding of how urban form relates to potential effects of transport policies on urban mobility transitions.

Novel analytical framework combines concepts of path dependence, path creation and path destabilisation to three urban fabrics (walking, transit and car cities), to study the transition potential of recent transport policy measures influencing the Helsinki region in Finland.

Analysis showed that the potential effects of single policy measures often reach over all three urban fabrics. A policy measure may simultaneously contain elements of both path dependence, i.e. support for fossil-fuel based private motoring in the car city and path creation, i.e. stimulation of innovations in transit or walking cities. Policy outcomes are often conditional on implementation of other policy measures. For transition governance, this indicates that policy mixes should both destabilise car cities and enforce path creation in walking and transit cities.

Findings are based on potential rather than evaluated impacts and a limited sample of policies.

Findings support previous research on the importance of policy coherence: multiple policies and coherence across domains are important. They demonstrate the usefulness of analysing recent or planned policies from the transition perspective.

The paper provides novel insights by combining policy analysis to the spatial model of overlapping urban fabrics. In addition, it applies the concepts of path dependence, path creation and path destabilisation in a new way.

Relating development control regulations to urban morphology analysis concepts is essential to deal with incremental change in existing contexts, relating urban morphology analysis to intangible factors of change such as land economics, human needs, politics and ideologies, helps protecting character and value of contexts from unguided change controlled by waves of political decisions, change of densities and land values. The first part of the paper discusses different approaches to urban morphology analysis, the need to development control regulations to protect character and value, the incremental nature of urban change, and urban morphology's non physical aspects effect on urban change. The second part of the paper reviews two case studies in France and Egypt to assess development control regulations in each case, how it affected urban change and area character, and examines whether urban morphology analysis was part of Development control regulations or not. It concludes with the evaluation of the second case, and the development of a frame work linking non physical factors affecting incremental change with morphological studies, showing the need to relate development control regulations to morphological analysis of town's form and non physical variables affecting form change to guide positively incremental change.

The failure of conventional, post-war development to bring about the housing-led regeneration of much of Glasgow’s vacant and derelict inner-city land has exacerbated the loss of middle-income households to car-dominated suburbs built on green-field sites. Plot-based urbanism offers an innovative approach to development, based on an urban structure made up of fine-grained elements, in the form of plots, capable of incremental development by a range of agencies. The historical and morphological study of traditional, pre-war masterplanning methods in Glasgow suggests that a typically disaggregated pattern of land subdivision remains of great relevance for development, and that the physical form and organisation of urban land may relate to the capacity for neighbourhood self-organisation. This study assists future masterplanning and investment in the regeneration of inner-city neighbourhoods by suggesting ways of making investment more informed, and the development process more responsive to urban change. We argue that the publicly-funded sector could take on the role of lead provider of development opportunity through the adoption of methods derived from traditional masterplanning processes, providing opportunities for small-scale house building, and thereby supporting resilient and adaptable communities in the sustainable reuse of vacant inner-city land.

As historic cities evolve, change in their urban form can be expected. Yet, uncontrolled change of land plots, which represent a significant element of urban form, leads to uncontrolled change in buildings' configurations and typologies threatening accordingly the urban character of heritage contexts. Mechanisms controlling plot subdivision, however, can play an effective role in guiding developments and in controlling urban change in heritage settings. The present study seeks to assist decision-makers in their attempt to control urban change in heritage areas through a plot-based approach.

This paper is divided into three sections: the first focuses on plot subdivision as a key aspect of urban form; the second illustrates the case of the heritage village of New Gourna in Luxor and the third includes discussion and implications of adopting a plot-based morphological approach to control morphological transformation in heritage contexts. For the morphological analysis of New Gourna, the study relied on comparative cartographic analysis of original drawings of the village versus the situation in 2022. The morphological analysis focuses mainly on qualitative and quantitative aspects of plot configurations and building patterns.

Findings support the urgency of establishing a plot-based strategy to maintain urban character of heritage contexts in Egypt and call for a plot-based morphological approach to control change and inform new development attempts.

The present research provides an assessment of the morphological transformation of the heritage village of New Gourna. In addition, it proposes a plot-based approach for heritage contexts under transformation.

In casting a new look at city; this study interprets the urban form in respect of the role played by human perception of space. The main aim of this research at a macro level is to attain a strong theorical basis through a multi-dimensional approach to the city. The method of analyzing and carrying out a critique of it at an applied level will clarify the impact, which cultural factors have in the formation of urban form. This preliminary recognition and idealism is based on a hermeneutic and deductive method that is particular to the intellectual sciences In the process of devising theories, studying the urban planning texts related to the subject of study and the conclusion from the field study which is carried out in the Isfahan Naghshe Jahan square in the Safavy period played a key role in the research in addition to the goals and questions.

With the increasing number of universities in the country, research on urban form and architecture—with a focus on historic settlements—has accelerated in Cyprus in the last fifteen years. Lefke, a small traditional medieval town located on north-west Cyprus, warrants a detailed urban morphological study, as its traditional urban pattern has been shaped by a medieval character. Within its overall organic urban pattern, there are well-scaled narrow streets, a number of public buildings and irregularly shaped public spaces at the intersection of streets and/or in front of public buildings. Lefke's morphological characteristics, which have developed throughout many years, have been significantly impacted by British influences, as the Cyprus Mines Corporation (CMC), established in 1916, turned Lefke into an industrial town. The CMC district, which is the first industrial mass housing district in Cyprus, has uniquely impacted Lefke's urban patterns and still defines the morphological characteristics of the town today. Accordingly, this paper first explores urban morphology based on two pioneering morphological studies: Gianfranco Cannigia's theories of typo-morphological understanding, and the evolutionary insights of M.R.G. Conzen. The ultimate goal is to set up a typo-morphological basis for the CMC industrial mass housing district, which will drive future interventions, design and planning policies towards its conservation and sustainability.

The purpose of this paper is to define the identity, city identity and architectural identity; to review, analyze and synthesize different pieces from literature to explore and define the factors that shape the city identity; to define the strategies of hybridization process that can be used to re-locate (re-define) the city identity; to examine the most effective factors that shape the identity of Amman city from various perspectives, to examine the relationships/interrelationships between all the factors that shape any city identity from the designers’ perspective, finally, to apply the strategies of hybridization process to re-locate (re-define) Amman’s city identity.

This research used two research methods to collect data as follows: literature review, content analysis and face-face questionnaire. Descriptive statistics were used to examine the most effective factors that shape the Amman’s identity from different perspectives. The Pearson product-moment correlation coefficient (Pearson r) was computed to assess the relationships between all factors that shape the identity of any city from the perspective of Jordanian designers and experts.

This research concluded that the factors that shape the city identity are cultural factors (socio-cultural, historical, economical and globalization factors), environmental factors (geographic, climate and building materials factors) and urban and architectural factors (spatial design organization, architectural style, open spaces and parks, urban structure factors). Additionally, the six urban development factors that responsible for the hybridization process in a city are new architectural typology and new special configuration, urban edges and hybrid textures, public hybridization open spaces, roads highway-scapes, urban redevelopment through super sites by star architects and downtown urban developments. This research found that there are different perspectives about the definition and factors that shape the identity of Amman’s city because of differences in cultures, experiences, knowledge, education level and personal preferences. The city identity is not a constant concept. It is changed according to time, place, people, culture, global trends, economic status and experience. Moreover, the correlation results revealed that the relationships/interrelationships between all the factors that shape the identity of any city have strong/very strong positive linear associations and significant relationships (r > 0.89).

Greater Amman Municipality (GAM) should provide a vision to redefine the identity of Amman city and control over the development pressure, built form and image of the city. This vision should be based on research, analysis and adoption of the most effective road map. GAM and all stakeholders should establish and enforce using specific architectural styles, urban design guidelines, building codes, policy tools and land use regulations to re-define the city identity. GAM should review, assess, approve and supervise all development projects through all design and construction phases especially in sensitive areas. GAM should focus on building capacity, empower its architects and planners, and re-organize (re-structure) their units and administrations especially planning and licensing departments to improve the city image and guide development. This research recommended that architects should design new, diverse and innovative architectural concepts, typologies and spatial configurations. Rapid development and new edges should be planned, designed and managed from the parts to the whole. The heterogeneous landscape and everyday activities will improve the vitality of urban and open public spaces and form of public culture. Architects and star architects ought not to make a clear and sharp separation between old and new development, architectural styles and typologies. Architects and urban designers ought to design hybrid physical urban environments, urban morphology, urban multi-functional activities, mix-use buildings, open spaces for social life, street patterns and furniture, squares, architectural style and typologies, spatial connectivity, green spaces and landscape entities. The designers and planners should consider how to create a city for living, working and recreation.

This research defined the identity, city identity, architectural identity and the factors that may shape the city identities. This research proposed and used the hybridization process as a tool to re-locate (re-define) the identity of Amman city and any city to be more obvious. Additionally, this research examined the relationships/interrelationships between the factors that shape the city identity.