The volumetric city

Abstract

This paper sets out a research agenda for the interrogation of urban space as being ontologically constituted by its volumetric properties: that is, the ways in which the arrangement of dimensions and capacities above, below and in relation to the surface of the city are measured. The paper reviews the nascent ‘volumetric turn’ in explaining the production of urban space, noting the growing interest among scholars in understanding how verticality, surface, and the subterranean relate to the power and political economy of cities.