ABSTRACT
This chapter focuses on urban design's morphological dimension – the configuration of urban form and space, and the spatial patterns of infrastructure that support it. It discusses the field of urban morphology is introduced, and key morphological elements. The chapter describes two fundamental ‘connecting’ elements of the urban fabric are analysed: street networks and urban blocks. It discusses streets as places and the particular balance between people and cars. Urban morphology – the study of change in the physical form and shape of settlements over time – focuses on patterns and processes of growth and change. The term morphology was first used by the German writer and statesman Johann Wolfgang von Goethe at the end of the eighteenth century as a science dealing with the essence of forms. Morphologists showed that settlements could be broken down into several key elements.
