Morphological tessellation as a way of partitioning space: Improving consistency in urban morphology at the plot scale

Fleischmann, Martin; Feliciotti, Alessandra; Rómice, Ombretta; Porta, Sergio

doi:10.1016/j.compenvurbsys.2019.101441

Cited by 62 publications

(38 citation statements)

References 17 publications

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“…In the Python programming language the momepy package provides another toolkit for urban form analysis [ 47 ]. However, momepy is primarily designed for summary calculations within morphological tessellations [ 40 ] or similar areas such as cadastral plots and does not currently support gridded output datasets. Heris, Foks [ 39 ] provide gridded output layers calculated from the Microsoft building footprints for the United States.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…But there are also advantages from an analytical perspective. Morphology calculations have often been tied to the scale of a “plot” defined by property lines, roads or Thiessen polygons [ 8 , 40 ]. However, this decision could be problematic in places without pre-defined small urban zones or lacking good data on roads to define these areas.…”

Section: Calculating Building Footprint Metricsmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Tools for mapping multi-scale settlement patterns of building footprints: An introduction to the R package foot

Jochem

Tatem

2021

PLoS ONE

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Spatial datasets of building footprint polygons are becoming more widely available and accessible for many areas in the world. These datasets are important inputs for a range of different analyses, such as understanding the development of cities, identifying areas at risk of disasters, and mapping the distribution of populations. The growth of high spatial resolution imagery and computing power is enabling automated procedures to extract and map building footprints for whole countries. These advances are enabling coverage of building footprint datasets for low and middle income countries which might lack other data on urban land uses. While spatially detailed, many building footprints lack information on structure type, local zoning, or land use, limiting their application. However, morphology metrics can be used to describe characteristics of size, shape, spacing, orientation and patterns of the structures and extract additional information which can be correlated with different structure and settlement types or neighbourhoods. We introduce the foot package, a new set of open-source tools in a flexible R package for calculating morphology metrics for building footprints and summarising them in different spatial scales and spatial representations. In particular our tools can create gridded (or raster) representations of morphology summary metrics which have not been widely supported previously. We demonstrate the tools by creating gridded morphology metrics from all building footprints in England, Scotland and Wales, and then use those layers in an unsupervised cluster analysis to derive a pattern-based settlement typology. We compare our mapped settlement types with two existing settlement classifications. The results suggest that building patterns can help distinguish different urban and rural types. However, intra-urban differences were not well-predicted by building morphology alone. More broadly, though, this case study demonstrates the potential of mapping settlement patterns in the absence of a housing census or other urban planning data.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Calculating Building Footprint Metricsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Tools for mapping multi-scale settlement patterns of building footprints: An introduction to the R package foot

Jochem

Tatem

2021

PLoS ONE

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“…In the literature, it has been proposed that data regarding the shape of area Voronoi cells – whose generators are building polygons – overcome not only the potential lack of data availability regarding plot shapes, but also potential spatial coverage problems between buildings and plot layers (Fleischmann et al., 2020; Hamaina et al., 2014; Usui, 2019; Usui and Asami, 2020). Although these are the advantages of substituting area Voronoi cells for a set of data regarding actual plot shapes, the following limitation should be taken into consideration: the sizes of area Voronoi cells whose generators are building polygons tend to be more averaged than those of actual lots.…”

Section: Assumption and Data Processing Regarding Plots In Empirical Study Areasmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Therefore, it is difficult to create well-arranged and harmonious streetscapes. In addition, the plot is a conceptually and analytically ambiguous concept, and precise data regarding plot shapes are generally unavailable (Fleischmann et al., 2020; Usui, 2019; Usui and Asami, 2020). Although more and more data regarding building geometries are now becoming available, precise data regarding building heights are generally unavailable.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Building height distribution under zoning regulations: Theoretical derivation based on allometric scaling analysis and application to harmonise building heights

Usui

2020

Environment and Planning B: Urban Analytics and City Science

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Building height is one of the most important determinants of streetscapes. According to zoning regulations in countries such as Japan, building heights are indirectly controlled by the floor area ratio (FAR). The maximum FAR and the building coverage ratio (BCR) represent the main tools of zoning regulations, which legally regulate building shapes and volumes based on plot sizes at the district scale. If plot sizes and shapes are uniform due to zoning regulations, uniform building shapes (both their plane shapes and heights) may emerge. However, in Japan, plot sizes and shapes are not only non-uniform but irregular. Furthermore, the plot is a conceptually and analytically ambiguous concept and data regarding plot shapes and building heights are unavailable. Therefore, it is difficult to understand the relationship between variations in building heights and zoning regulations. These issues prompt the following research question: How can we estimate building height distribution under zoning regulations at the district scale? To answer this question, plot shapes are objectively defined as area Voronoi cells whose generators are building polygons and road networks. Then, the following two analyses are carried out in downtown districts of the Tokyo metropolitan region. First, the relationship between plot sizes, BCR and building heights is analysed. It is found that building heights scale sub-linearly to plot sizes. Second, following this relationship, the probability density function of building heights under zoning regulations is theoretically derived as a log-normal distribution, primarily estimated from building density, road network density, average road width, BCR and FAR. This is compared with the empirical distribution of discretised building heights and the difference is investigated. Furthermore, how to harmonise variations in building heights is discussed by considering their opportunities and external costs. These findings are expected to provide urban planners with a theoretical basis for creating harmonious streetscapes.

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“…Such a situation is common. To overcome this problem, previous research [33] proposed a method of spatial partitioning called morphological tessellation (MT), which was later refined and tested [34,35]. For certain types of morphometric analysis, MT is a viable proxy of morphological plot and can be used as a basic unit of spatial division.…”

Section: Measuring Urban Formmentioning

confidence: 99%

Climate Adaptation Plans in the Context of Coastal Settlements: The Case of Portugal

et al. 2020

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The impact of sea-level rise on coastal towns is expected to be a major challenge, with millions of people exposed. The climate-induced risk assessment of coastal areas subject to flooding plays an essential role in planning effective measures for adaptation plans. However, in European legislation, as well as in the regional plans adopted by the member states, there is no clear reference to urban settlement, as this concept is variable and difficult to categorise from the policy perspective. This lack of knowledge makes it complicated to implement efficient adaptation plans. This research examines the presence of the issue in Portugal’s coastal settlements, the European coastal area most vulnerable to rising sea levels, using the case of seashore streets as the most exposed waterfront public urban areas. Using the morphometric classification of the urban fabric, we analyse the relationship between urban typology and legislative macro-areas aimed at providing integrated adaptation plans. The study suggests that there is only a minimal relationship between the proposed classification and the geographical zones currently identified in coastal planning policies. Such incongruence suggests the need for change, as the policy should be able to provide a response plan tailored to the specificities of urban areas.

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Morphological tessellation as a way of partitioning space: Improving consistency in urban morphology at the plot scale

Cited by 62 publications

References 17 publications

Tools for mapping multi-scale settlement patterns of building footprints: An introduction to the R package foot

Tools for mapping multi-scale settlement patterns of building footprints: An introduction to the R package foot

Building height distribution under zoning regulations: Theoretical derivation based on allometric scaling analysis and application to harmonise building heights

Climate Adaptation Plans in the Context of Coastal Settlements: The Case of Portugal

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