Introduction

Abstract

In meeting this aim and demonstrating how urban morphology does matter, the book shall build on a brief critique of the state-of-the-art on urban morphology, the geometry of design typologies, construction systems and occupational behaviours. Armed with the critical insights this offers, it shall go on to reground the subject via a case study analysis of recent attempts made by cities to reduce energy consumption and associated levels of carbon emissions, both by way of and through what has been termed: an active and integrated institutional arrangement. This institutional, integrated and active regrounding of urban morphology shall draw upon the experiences of a transformation taking place in the London Borough of Sutton known as the Hackbridge project: a mass retrofit proposal designed as a sustainable suburb with district centres, neighbourhoods and buildings, laid out and contextualised as an energy-efficient, low-carbon zone. That is by the institutionalisation of a mass retrofit proposal, which is actively integrated in an urban regeneration strategy, whose vision, district-wide master plan, programme of neighbourhood renewal and redevelopment of suburban housing estates, is in turn capable of sustaining the ongoing transformation of Hackbridge into an energy-efficient, low-carbon zone.

demonstrating how urban morphology matters by reaching beyond the geometry of building design, construction systems and occupational behaviours and towards broader context-specific transformations