Typo-morphological Approach to Transforming an Urban Fabric

INTRODUCTION
In the past ten years, cities have grown at an unprecedented rate. This fast rate of growth has a considerable effect on the physical aspects of the city. Expansions have taken place in both directions horizontal as well as vertical. The whole energy of building industry has focused on individual units, where each building looks different from the other with an obvious desire to dominate each other. This has overshadowed the other aspects of city building.

Cities have transformed over ages since time immemorial. Most of the cities were transformed without an intention of doing so; they simply transformed by defining and redefining the relationships as per the needs of the society. There was a belief in the innate process of development or transformation of cities-incremental growth and evolutionary process. Owing to technological advances, city expansions and transformations are happening instantly. This has left no scope for interpretation of relationships by users; rather users are given transformed spaces to adapt themselves to. This has induced a gap of procedural evolution between what existed and what is existing.

Considering the old cities and the city extensions, the morphology has transformed to an extent that one finds it difficult to recognize a certain city from its form, street character or urban spaces. Within a certain city the walled area lends a unique, coherent and a united character; whereas all the new developments are similar and are fragmented. It lacks a sense of oneness or unity of urban form. The fabric fails to create a whole, a singular entity. The relationship between the Urban Form and the Urban Space constitute the essence of the city. Any modulation in the relationship is reflected and felt in the form and space.

CONCERNING ISSUES

1) The surface and the inside:
The mutation of urban space purely due to aesthetic reasons and for making the new city as a reminiscent of the old has ripped the meaning of the old form from the character. The development guidelines proposed by authorities provide stipulated morphologies that are unintended. The guidelines either enforce copy work from the old city to create the essence of the city or try create functional units in space. The language that the building talks inside is hardly representative of what is seen on the skin. This juxtaposition between the surface layer and the inside layer has become critical.

2) Estrangement between the public and the private realm:
While discussing public and private realms we also need to acknowledge two situations of such a happening.
a) Domestic; b) Commercial

Under both the circumstances the idea of "Free standing units" has been common. "Freestanding units" refers to a structure that has open space around its entire perimeter. The term is not limited to homes but also includes shops offices and apartment buildings. A typical attribute to the free standing units is the stark line rather than a gradual shift from the public domain to the private domain. In case of the old cities this gradation between a public space to a private one is soft and the relationship is defined. It not only exists in the domestic sections but also in commercial areas. In the architectural expressions in the new commercial or the residential sectors, there is lack of such graded spaces. The built form is hardly responsive of the urban space it is a part of; and hence free standing units.

3)Frozen entities and process in development:
The communicative merit lies in the unconscious thinking among the designers and the people. Unconscious thinking was oriented to common good rather than individual benefit. Today we see a wide difference in what the people think and what the designer and/or builders do. The development today is seen as a one-time act in which a selected expert population is involved- planners, politicians, engineers, architects, designers, builders etc.. This selected group of people have interest in the first step of development but renewals, redevelopment are never under their purview. Development is not seen as a process, the guidelines or policies are not redefined to suit the common needs. They have become prescriptive and do not allow for change.

There has been a change in relationship between urban form and urban space from the old cities to the new developments. In the new developments the typologies have lost the intimate relation that the built had with the un-built that lend the city its character. Not only have these relationships changed but the pressing needs of society have lead to the formation of new typologies. One needs to realize the evolution of new typologies (built as well as open) as a part of the process of development and strengthen the relationships.

AN INQUIRY

Type, Model and Genre
Quatremere de Quincy, at the end of the eighteenth century, brought forth a new understanding of 'type', until then regarded as a 'model', and based it on history, nature, and use. Quincy in Encyclopédie Méthodique (1825) proposed type is 'the idea of an element which ought to serve as a rule for the model.' He understood type expressed the permanence, in the single and unique object, of features which connected it with the past, acting as a perpetual recognition of a primitive but renewed identification of condition of the object. He considered type to be tied to history, changing continuously in relation to the urban context and that society in which planning, design, building and use are performed.

Jean-Nicolas-Louis Durand, however, elaborated the understanding of the 'type', substituting it by the term 'genre' and deviating from the stylistic categorization, to developing a principle-led categorization. He used the term 'genre' to refer to all the buildings with distinctly different functions, either public or private. His idea of architecture was based on convenience and economy. He considered that an architectural object is a composition of elements to form a building. He considered elements which have taken form and proportion through their relation with material and use. In his understandings there was no understanding of type with respect to time or change.

Typological approach
Typologists understand urban spaces as separate entities and units. They typify urban spaces with respect to attributes like form shape, size, number of entrances, edge conditions etc. Krier states that all types of spaces between buildings in towns are urban space (space between buildings), and that 'this space is geometrically bounded by a variety of elevations'. This concept of (urban) space is extremely simplistic. A typology is understood in isolation void of any relations.

Morphological approach
Morphologists are interested in generative structure of space. But the study is a-historical. Understand urban morphology taking urban form and space as a static feature. The concern remains in social-geometrical socio-economical aspects of space structuring; also focusing on transportation and movement.

Typo-morphological approach
Typo-morphological studies reveal the physical and spatial structure of cities. Typo-morphology is a conceptualization of the relationship between physical and social aspect of space. They are typological and morphological because they describe urban form (morphology) based on detailed classifications of buildings and open spaces by type (typology).Typo-morphology is the study of urban form derived from studies of typical spaces and structures.' (Moudon 1994)Typo-Morphological' studies are 'object-oriented' with both the built and their related urban space, essentially treated as 'objects', and interconnected units. Emphasis is thus not so much into the study of individual building types or in the categorization of urban spaces in isolation, but in the study of the relationship between building types and their related urban open space. Buildings and their related open spaces are seen complimentary interconnecting units of space that are made and manipulated by their owners or users. Together they constitute the 'urban fabric.
Typo-morphological approach is sensitive to the engraved historicity in the urban form as well it understands the needs and aspirations of the city. Typo-morphologists are interested in typologies of relationships between built form and urban space. A non static attitude to urban fabric is central to this idea hence at times also called as typo- morphogenesis. Ground analysis and explanation in history and evolution of material space are the prime aspects.

This approach takes into consideration 3 aspects

• Relation between building types and related urban spaces
  
• Sensitivity to history
  
• And an outlook that a city is not static at any given point.
  

BRIDGING THE GAP BETWEEN THE OLD AND THE NEW

Taking the fact that a city is not a static entity it becomes important that one needs to find trust in the evolutionary process of city growth and development.

Argan's two 'moments' in the design process become quite relevant here:

1. the typological moment, when the rules of design and building used in the past are identified and understood, and
   
2. the moment of invention, when the artist answers the historical and cultural questions through a critical approach (Moudon 1994; Argan 1996).
   

The answer lies in searching and separating the Essential from the Non-Essential

"In necessariias unitas; in necessariia libertas; in utrisque charitas"
American variation of an ancient Latin aphorism
"In essentials unity, in non essentials liberty; in both charity"

Edmund N Bacon in Design of Cities

Finding and strengthening the essentials of the city gives unity, and leaving the non essentials to evolve on own gives city its character. Extreme discipline or extreme freedom results either in static or chaotic system. The attempt is to separate the essentials from the non essentials. The essentials give unity to the whole and the non essentials give liberty or flexibility and induces complexity.

The process should be catalytic not enforced. The important point is that the catalyst is not a single end product but an element that impels and guides subsequent development. It is capable of moulding a city in any of several ways, none of them dictated by a single-minded vision. Its purpose is the incremental, continuous regeneration of the urban fabric.

The question arises, we as architects, urban designers and planners how do we now contribute ourselves to the city building? We are not the facilitators or the decision-makers now. What are we to design in a city?

It now becomes our work to find the essentials and through the catalytic methods strengthen it and entrust the people what they are capable of and guide the development rather than enforce it.

The author is pursuing Masters Degree in Urban Design at CEPT University and the above post is the theoretical background to the thesis in process guided by Prof. PVK Rameshwar.

Bibliography

1. Books
   

• Broadbent, Geoffrey. Emerging Concepts in Urban Space Design, E & FN Spon Publishers, 1990. (Chapters on Aldo Rossi, Aymonino and Krier Brothers)
  
• Larice, Michael and McDonald Elizabeth. The Urban Design Reader. Part 4 (Koolhas Rem, The Generic City) ,Part 5 (Moudon,A.V., Getting to Know the Built Landscape), Taylor & Francis Group, London, 2007.
  
• Krier, Rob.. Urban Space (Typological and Morphological Elements of the Concept of Urban Space)
  
• Lang Jon. Urban design: a typology of procedures and products, Elsevier, 2005.
  
• Trancik, Roger. Finding Lost Space: Theories of Urban Design, John Wiley and Sons, 1986.
  
• Rossi, Aldo. The Architecture of the City. MIT Press, 1984
  
• Petruccioli, A. (ed.) Typological process and design theory Aga Khan Program for Islamic Architecture, Harvard and MIT
  

1. Thesis:
   
   1. Patel, Kush. Sir Stuart Hogg Market and Surrounds, Calcutta- A typo-morphogenitic approach towards strengthening its identity as a civic node, School of Architecture, CEPT University, 2005.
      
   2. Nanda, Vivek. Urban Morphology and the Concept of Type, School of Architecture, CEPT University, 1989.
      
   3. Caliskan Olgu. Pattern Formation in Urban Design: Typo-morphology as a Design based Planning Approach, Turkish Higher Education Council,2011.
      
2. Un-published papers:
   
   1. Cortes Camila Pinzon. Morphologies of Fragmentation and Continuity, Faculty of Architecture-Urbanism-Urban Design, TU Delft, Netherlands,2004
      
   2. Poerbo, Heru Wibowo. Urban Design Guidelines as Design Control Instrument, 2001. pg 64- 70.
      
   3. A. Takács, L. Kamondi Synthesis of the intuitive and the discursive designer
      Schools, Srni - Czech Republic,
      7– 8 November 2005.
      
   4. Koster E.A. Urban morphology- A taste of a form-oriented approach to the history of urban development, June 2001
      
   5. Chen Fei. Typomorphology and the crisis of Chinese cities,
      Department of Architecture, University of Strathclyde, Glasgow.
      
   6. Hanson Julienne. Morphology and Design, University College London, UK.
      
   7. Kropf Karl. Typological Zoning
      
3. Articles:
   
   1. Vilder, Anthony. The Idea of type: The Transformation of the Academic Ideal, Oppositions Reader.
      
   2. Vilder, Anthony. Type,
      Oppositions Reader.
      
   3. Gulgonen Ahmet. A Typo- morphological Approach to Design Thinking, http://www.archnet.org/library/pubdownloader/pdf/3781/doc/DPC0437.pdf.
      
   4. After Typology: The Suffering of Diagrams, Architectural Design Journal, Vol. 70, No. 3, May-June 2000.
      
   5. Lehtovuori, Panu. Experience and Conflict. Centre for Urban and Regional Studies Publications, 2005.
      
   6. Margaret B. Sevcenko. Theories and Principles of Design in the Architecture of Islamic Societies Harvard University & MIT Aga Khan Program for Islamic Architecture, 1988. (Ahmet Gulgonen. Chapter 11- Typo morphological Approach to Design Thinking).
      
   7. Claessens François. Mapping urban and social space: towards a socio-cultural understanding of the built environment, Faculty of Architecture Delft University of Technology.
      
   8. Samuels, Ivor. Typo-morphology and Urban Design Practice, Urban Morphology Research Group, School of Geography, Earth and Environmental Sciences, University of Birmingham, Birmingham, (un-dated).
      
   9. Tice James, Theme and Variations: A Typological Approach to Housing Design, Teaching, and Research, University of Oregon, Journal of Architectural Education (1984-), Vol. 46, No. 3 (Feb., 1993), pp. 162-175.
      
   10. Conzen M. R. G.. Alnwick, Northumberland: A Study in Town-Plan Analysis, Transactions and Papers (Institute of British Geographers), No. 27 (1960).
       
   11. Whitehand J.W.R. Continuity and Discontinuity in Urban Landscape
       
   12. Moudon A.V. Urban Morphology as an emerging interdisciplinary field, Urban Morphology (1997) Vol. 1, Pg 3-10.
       
   13. Levy Albert, Urban Morphology and the problem of the modern urban fabric: some questions for research, Urban Morphology (1999) Vol. 3, Issue 2, pg 79-85.
       
   14. Whitehand J.W.R. British Urban Morphology: The Conzenian tradition, Urban Morphology (2001) Vol. 5, Issue 2, pg 103-109.
       
   15. Gauthiez Bernard The History of Urban Morphology, Urban Morphology (2004) Vol. 8, Issue 1, pg 26-35.
       
   16. Glossary, International Seminar on Urban Form, Online version
       
4. Online Discussions
   
   1. Patel Kush, Typology and Urban Morphogenesis: a combinative theoretical premise for a graduate level thesis enquiry <http://www.archnet.org/forum/view.jsp?message_id=70456>