Project Description

This work addresses contemporary metropolitan regions as morphological problems. It identifies in the methodological and analytical fragmentation of urban morphology as a discipline, one of the main causes for the current paucity of knowledge on metropolitan form. Drawing on this conjecture, the work proposes a set of analytical methods, integrated within a coherent framework for metropolitan morphological analysis. It approaches metropolitan form at the macro-scale, through the conjoint use of space syntax and data mining techniques; and at the micro-scale, proposing a method based on quantitative morphological descriptions and unsupervised classification techniques. It makes wide use of GIS technologies, for integrating these methods into a common platform for data gathering, analysis and visualization. Using Oporto’s metropolitan region as study area, the work studies its morphological evolution along the last sixty years, in order to demonstrate how the proposed analytical framework is capable of probing, describing and systematizing the complex spatial structure of contemporary metropolitan form.

Research Team

• Miguel Serra
• Paulo Pinho (supervisor)

Financial Support

• FCT funding SFRH / BD / 47204 / 2008

Stage of Progress

• Concluded in 2013