New theories of urban forms and their impact upon architectural education, urban design and social behavior on cities

Abstract

Our research group has been working in the last twenty years on the theoretical frameworks involved in the architectural and urban design practices of research on architectural and urban design, and we have produce el lot of publications in different international academic books and magazines (……………) In this article we will start with some considerations about the situation of the morphological classical schools of thoughts until 2000th(Anne Vernez Moudon, 1997). After, we will analyze the theoretical impact of the new digital tools, mainly space syntax, in order to uncover the theoretical innovations by David Kirsh ,Rainer E Zimmermann, David Seamon ,Karl Friston, Jan Gehl, Jonas Langer, Ole Moystad and others. The theoretical confrontation between space syntax and social phenomenology by Bill Hillier himself since 2005 on, will be the best guide for our argumentation and also the work by David Kirsh on social cognition. We will focalize our attention into the significance of all these innovations in relation the way architects, urban planners and designers think in order to improve the quality of design practices in a lot of new interdisciplinary ways.Finally, and in order to make more explicit the practical dimension of those theories, we will present some research examples pointing out to clarify the cognitive qualities of architects, urban planners and designers in relation to the understanding of the morphologies of the cities.