Achieving Urban Vitality in Knowledge Territories Through Place Quality: Towards a Morphology-Based Algorithmic Approach

The knowledge economy has become ever more important for cities and regions, and different types of urban spaces have been created to accommodate its activities. One of the main assets of these spaces is vitality, a quality that is directly related to innovation and is oftentimes considered the result of spontaneous space arrangements. Recent literature, however, shows that urban vitality is not an intangible quality; it can be correlated to different place quality aspects, such as urban morphology, and measured through ex-isting analytical methods. The aim of this paper is to systematize such indicators and use them to develop algorithms that can be subsequently incorporated into a computational tool for the assessment of knowledge territories during the early design stages, to support their spatial planning and development. The Paris-Saclay Urban Campus is used as a case study to understand and assess these place quality indicators in an existing bench-mark. The results can contribute to the serendipity and the success of new or redeveloped knowledge and innovation areas.