During the Spatial Data Science Conference 2021, I had a chance to deliver a workshop illustrating the application of PySAL and momepy in understanding the structure of cities. The recording is now available for everyone. The materials are available on my GitHub and you can even run the whole notebook in your browser using the MyBinder service.
We have a new paper published in the Geographical Analysis on the opportunities current developments in geographic data science within the Python ecosystem offer to urban morphology. To sum up - there’s a lot to play with and if you’re interested in the quantification of urban form, there’s no better choice for you at the moment. Urban morphology (study of urban form) is historically a qualitative discipline that only recently expands into more data science-ish waters. We believe that there’s a lot of potential in this direction and illustrate it on the case study looking into the evolution of urban patterns, i.e. how different aspects of urban form has changed over time. ...
I had a chance to present our ongoing work on the classification of the (built) environment in Great Britain during the International Seminar on Urban Form 2021, which was held virtually in Glasgow. I was presenting the classification of urban form, one component of Spatial Signatures we’re developing as part of the Urban Grammar AI project together with Dani Arribas-Bel. The video of the presentation is attached below, as well as the abstract. ...
The Urban Atlas: Methodological Foundation of a Morphometric Taxonomy of Urban Form is the title of my PhD Thesis defended in January 2021 at the University of Strathclyde. Thanks to Ombretta and Sergio for guiding me along the way! Abstract No two cities in the world are alike. Each urban environment is characterised by a unique variety and heterogeneity as a result of its evolution and transformation, reflecting the differences in needs human populations have had over time manifested, in space, by a plethora of urban patterns. ...
On March 30, 2021, I had a chance to deliver a talk as part of the Spatial Analytics + Data Seminar Series organised by the University of Newcastle (Rachel Franklin), the University of Bristol (Levi Wolf) and the Alan Turing Institute. The recording of the event is now available on YouTube. Spatial Signatures: Dynamic classification of the built environment This talk introduces the notion of “spatial signatures”, a characterisation of space based on form and function. We know little about how cities are organised over space influences social, economic and environmental outcomes, in part because it is hard to measure. It presents the first stage of the Urban Grammar AI research project, which develops a conceptual framework to characterise urban structure through the notions of spatial signatures and urban grammar and will deploy it to generate open data products and insight about the evolution of cities. ...
Imagine you are trying to analyse a city, and you want primarily to understand its structure. You look at buildings, their dimensions and patterns they form, you look at a street network, and then you want to understand detailed patterns of density. This last point requires a specification of an aerial unit, and morphological tessellation is one of the most detailed options. I don’t want to talk only about density, but let’s use it as an illustration. ...