Extending the Scope of Morpho Analysis

an Iranian Exploration

Authors

Keywords:

Urban Morphology, Morpho Methodology, Town-Plan, Contemporary Urban Landscapes, Tehran

Abstract

The study of urban form in Iran has been mainly focused on historical urban landscapes. Furthermore, morphological studies have mostly adopted a descriptive qualitative emphasis, many times related to ‘particular’ aspects of the object under analysis and not to ‘general’ frameworks of explanation. While acknowledging the unique urban history of the country, this paper focuses on contemporary urban forms, offering a balance between description and explanation, qualitative and quantitative analysis, and ‘particular’ and ‘general’ views. It proposes the Morpho methodology, focused on the town-plan elements – streets, street blocks, plots, and buildings – for the analysis of contemporary urban landscapes. Morpho is applied into two districts in Tehran. The application makes evident how this morphological framework can be used in the description and explanation of contemporary urban landscapes, highlighting the main strengths (high density of street blocks and plots, high coincidence between building and plot frontages) and weaknesses (low to medium permeability of streets) of the two districts.

Author Biographies

Mazyar Abaee, Urban Planning and Architecture Research Centre of Iran

Mazyar Abaee is the manager of the urban research department at UARC (Urban Planning and Architecture Research Centre of Iran). He has graduated with his Ph.D, from school of urbanism, college of fine arts, the University of Tehran, in 2018. During his PhD, he developed his ideas on urban morphology in some conference papers presented in ISUF and ISUFItaly Conferences. He has worked on the subject of urban design process and presented his dissertation under the title of ‘Rereading Urban Design Process Focusing on Implementation of the Projects’.

Vitor Oliveira, TTA Research Centre for Territory Transports and Environment

Vítor Oliveira is Secretary-General of the International Seminar on Urban Form (ISUF) and President of the Portuguese-language Network of Urban Morphology (PNUM). He is Principal Researcher at the Research Centre for Territory Transports and Environment (CITTA / FEUP) and ‘Professor Auxiliar’ of Urban Morphology and Urban Planning at ULP. He is an architect (FAUP), has a MSc in Planning and Design of the Built Environment (FAUP/FEUP), and a PhD in Planning / Civil Engineering (FEUP). He is Associate Editor of ‘Urban Morphology’, Advisory Editor of ‘The Urban Book Series’ (Springer) and Founding Editor of the ‘Revista de Morfologia Urbana’ (2013-18).

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Published

2021-11-09

How to Cite

Abaee, M., & Oliveira, V. (2021). Extending the Scope of Morpho Analysis: an Iranian Exploration. Journal of Urban Research and Development, 2(1), 30–46. Retrieved from https://ojs.emu.edu.tr/index.php/jurd/article/view/291