ABSTRACT
This introduction presents an overview of the key concepts discussed in the subsequent chapters of this book. The book offers a different perspective, born of research in many different places over time. It undertakes the task of unraveling the idea of building types as emergent forms that drive most urban development and transformation. The book is intended to help planners understand the subtleties of the idea and answer confounding questions about use-type and formal types, architectural guidelines, site plans, and form-based codes, and how type is related to the urban form. It introduces a brief history of the idea of type, which can provide a background to those who want to understand the development of typology and morphology as developed since the Enlightenment. A type is a class of buildings having formal characteristics in common, usually as a result of having certain global functions in common.
