Phenomenology & Urban Morphology

As a team, we aim to develop research with the overarching objective of fostering inter- and transdisciplinary dialogue. Our goal is to identify methodologies for shaping urban environments in a manner conducive to enhancing the quality of life, well-being and to multi- and transgenerational transfers of meaning. We will facilitate the dialogue on the transformation of the meaning of place in time, with a view to forming intergenerational environments for the present and future that are respectful of well-being.

Phenomenology

Phenomenology provides an understanding of the human experience of the world that is methodologically rigorous. In contrast to empirically-oriented disciplines such as ethnology or psychology, it focuses on the structures of lived experience and shows (and reflects on) the ways in which things appear. The phenomenology of architecture offers comprehensive and in-depth investigations of the most fundamental concepts, terms and ideas in architecture, such as space and place, dwelling, building and atmospheres, embodiment, environment and lifeworld, actions, and affordances. The experience of the lifeworld, or more precisely, of our home-world, is shaped by intentional attitudes including perception, movement, perspectivity, orientation, familiarity, historicity, and so forth. The concepts of typicality and habituality are profoundly relevant to urban morphology as they have a strong influence on how we perceive, interact with and inhabit our built environments.

Urban Morphology

The tradition of urban form studies, or urban morphology, links architecture, urban history, planning and design through form, uniting a vast and growing community of researchers originally coming from such diverse disciplines as architecture, urban design, geography, history, anthropology, heritage studies and so on. The field encompasses several complementary approaches that are collaborating within the framework of the International Seminar on Urban Form (ISUF). One of them is rooted in the method of process-based typology founded by the Italian architect Saverio Muratori and has been further developed, among others, by Gianfranco Caniggia. It stands apart from other typological approaches in its emphasis on process and the history of the development of local urban palimpsests, which is particularly attuned to historical and cultural context.  Another approach striving to link urban morphology to the phenomenology of human spatial perception is space syntax. This configurational approach to the study of urban form has been developed in the 1970s by Bill Hillier, Julienne Hanson and colleagues at the Bartlett, University College London. It examines the relationship between human behaviour and spatial configurations, comparing patterns of activity with patterns of space.