From a building to a region

Scalable morphology with urban morphometrics

Martin Fleischmann

Charles University

Looking back to 2019

momepy: Urban Morphology Measuring Toolkit (Fleischmann, 2019)

Methodological Foundation of a Numerical Taxonomy of Urban Form (Fleischmann et al., 2021)

Methodological Foundation of a Numerical Taxonomy of Urban Form (Fleischmann et al., 2021)

Methodological Foundation of a Numerical Taxonomy of Urban Form (Fleischmann et al., 2021)

Looking back to 2022

Geographical characterisation of British urban form and function using the spatial signatures framework
(Fleischmann and Arribas-Bel, 2022)

Geographical characterisation of British urban form and function using the spatial signatures framework
(Fleischmann and Arribas-Bel, 2022)

Geographical characterisation of British urban form and function using the spatial signatures framework
(Fleischmann and Arribas-Bel, 2022)

Geographical characterisation of British urban form and function using the spatial signatures framework
(Fleischmann and Arribas-Bel, 2022)

Geographical characterisation of British urban form and function using the spatial signatures framework
(Fleischmann and Arribas-Bel, 2022)

Today

availability of data

evolution of software

performance

automatised pre-processing

all that pushes the limits of scalability

scalable urban morphometrics

What is urban morphometrics

Not anything new!

What is urban morphometrics

excerpt from Larkham and Jones, 1991

What is urban morphometrics

A study of urban form through the means of quantitative assessment of its constituent elements.

Conceptually similar to historico-geographical approach.

Methodologically embedded in spatial data science and geography.

Not anything new!

But things have changed over time.

We can measure potentially hundreds of morphometric characters

• dimension
• shape
• spatial distribution

• intensity
• diversity
• connectivity

based on Fleischmann, Romice and Porta (2020)

docs.momepy.org

docs.momepy.org

docs.momepy.org

docs.momepy.org

docs.momepy.org

docs.momepy.org

We can measure them at scale

How to scale urban morphometrics

Case of Central Europe

Caution! Work in progress.

Step 01

Split the data without breaking spatial dependency

Regional cores (Fleischmann and Samardzhiev, upcoming)

Regional subdivision (Fleischmann and Samardzhiev, upcoming)

Step 02

Avoid methodological bottlenecks

Example - morphological tessellation

Building footprints (docs.momepy.org)

Street centerlines (docs.momepy.org)

Morphological tessellation (docs.momepy.org)

Building footprints (docs.momepy.org)

Morphological tessellation (docs.momepy.org)

Morphological tessellation (docs.momepy.org)

But morphological tessellation is a bottleneck!

Street centerlines (docs.momepy.org)

Enclosures (docs.momepy.org)

Enclosed tessellation (docs.momepy.org)

Enclosed tessellation (docs.momepy.org)

Embarrassingly parallel algorithm

Step 03

Avoid implementation bottlenecks

Vectorised geometry engine

Reimplementation of core data structures

(You don’t need to do this step. It is done and ready to be used.)

Step 04

Measure!

Building adjacency in Kraków, Poland (Fleischmann and Samardzhiev, upcoming)

Inter-building distance in Kraków, Poland (Fleischmann and Samardzhiev, upcoming)

Solar orientation of enclosures in Kraków, Poland (Fleischmann and Samardzhiev, upcoming)

Area of buildings in Kraków, Poland (Fleischmann and Samardzhiev, upcoming)

Area of tessellation cells in Kraków, Poland (Fleischmann and Samardzhiev, upcoming)

Corner count of buildings in Kraków, Poland (Fleischmann and Samardzhiev, upcoming)

Shared walls ratio of buildings in Kraków, Poland (Fleischmann and Samardzhiev, upcoming)

Width of street profile in Kraków, Poland (Fleischmann and Samardzhiev, upcoming)

Street network meshedness in Kraków, Poland (Fleischmann and Samardzhiev, upcoming)

Street network meshedness in Kraków, Poland (Fleischmann and Samardzhiev, upcoming)

What is next

It depends…

Our step 05

Morphotope delineation

Morphotope

excerpt from Larkham and Jones, 1991

Morphotope delineation in Kraków, Poland (Fleischmann and Samardzhiev, upcoming)

Our step 06

Baseline morphotope types

Baseline morphotope types in Kraków, Poland (Fleischmann and Samardzhiev, upcoming)

Our step 07

Extensible taxonomy of urban form

Taxonomic tree reflecting morphotope hierarchy in Central Europe (Fleischmann and Samardzhiev, upcoming)

Baseline morphotope types in Kraków, Poland (Fleischmann and Samardzhiev, upcoming)

Classes at cophenetic distance 50 in Kraków, Poland (Fleischmann and Samardzhiev, upcoming)

Classes at cophenetic distance 100 in Kraków, Poland (Fleischmann and Samardzhiev, upcoming)

Classes at cophenetic distance 100 in Berlin, Germany (Fleischmann and Samardzhiev, upcoming) [colors are inconsistent between regions]

Classes at cophenetic distance 100 in Bratislava, Slovakia (Fleischmann and Samardzhiev, upcoming) [colors are inconsistent between regions]

Classes at cophenetic distance 100 in Munich, Germany (Fleischmann and Samardzhiev, upcoming) [colors are inconsistent between regions]

Classes at cophenetic distance 100 in Prague, Czechia (Fleischmann and Samardzhiev, upcoming) [colors are inconsistent between regions]

Classes at cophenetic distance 100 in Vienna, Austria (Fleischmann and Samardzhiev, upcoming) [colors are inconsistent between regions]

Classes at cophenetic distance 100 in Warsaw, Poland (Fleischmann and Samardzhiev, upcoming) [colors are inconsistent between regions]

Classes at cophenetic distance 100 in Pilsen, Czechia (Fleischmann and Samardzhiev, upcoming) [colors are inconsistent between regions]

Classes at cophenetic distance 100 in Central Bohemia, Czechia (Fleischmann and Samardzhiev, upcoming) [colors are inconsistent between regions]

Take home points

Times have changed. Methods have changed. Concepts? Those only evolved

Urban morphology can be deeply embedded in spatial data science

Urban morphometrics can support quantitative studies done at scale

All within fully interpretable framework

Do you want to follow up

martin.fleischmann@natur.cuni.cz

@martinfleis@fosstodon.org

martinfleischmann.net