MAP: a methodology for Morphological Analysis and Prescription

Abstract

Bringing together different approaches to understand the complex physical form of cities and exploring the potential of this scientific knowledge for planning practice are crucial tasks for urban morphology. Yet these have so far been insufficiently explored. Over recent years, these two challenging issues – comparative studies and the relation between research and practice – have been brought to the centre of the morphological debate. This paper presents a new methodology to address these challenges, based on the integration of historico-geographical, process typological and configurational approaches. It aims to inform planning decisions on the transformation of urban form. The procedural framework of the methodology for Morphological Analysis and Prescription (MAP) includes six stages; three concerned with analysis and three related to prescription. The methodology has been applied to the city of Porto, Portugal.