Coping With the Incompatibility of Urban Form Structure in Cross-Cultural Comparison: A Coordinated Approach Based on Critical Review of Classical Morphology Theories

Urban morphology aims to describe and explain urban form and has the potential to be applied in urban planning and landscape design. However, the Eurocentric perspective of classic theories limits its validity and related design practice in a contemporary multicultural context. The lack of a universal approach to depicting the urban form structure is one of the fundamental aspects of such a theoretical flaw. This article addresses the historical and regional incompatibility of urban form structures and discusses its causes by analyzing the basic standpoints of the historical geography perspective and the construction perspective in urban morphology. Based on the critical review, "separation" and "connection" are established as two criteria for specifying urban form units, and the compositional nature of the built environment is highlighted. Further, by reconciling the functional and morphological aspects, or that is, linking urban form with the agents that shape it, a coordinated approach is proposed with rational parts from classical theories, and a corresponding quantitative method taking the distribution of different sizes of units as a key indicator is also developed to aid urban form subdivision.