Urban Form and Digitalization of Urban Design

Abstract

In the mid-19th Century, John Snow utilized spatial data analysis to trace the source of a cholera outbreak in London. His methods established the fundamental theory of using urban morphological approaches to solve practical urban issues. Accompanied by rapid innovation, technological improvements, and increasing computational power, the digitalization of urban design has seen advances made in urban morphology studies. Given this digitalization of urban design, this paper examines the development and impacts of urban morphology studies in education, design practice, and research using the urban form elements analytical framework proposed by Kevin Lynch. It presents a variety of international case studies and discusses the importance of urban morphological studies and digitalization of urban design at a global scale.