Yu Ye and Akkelies van Nes
Yu Ye, SPS alumnus and now PhD candidate at the University of Hong Kong, gives a talk at the SPS Seminar Series
Yu Ye talked about “Form syntax’ as an approach to understand urban form quantitatively and promote high degree of urbanity in urban design ”, on issues being studied in his doctoral research. You will find an abstract of his presentation below.
Yu Ye is an alumnus of TU Delft, having successfully graduated in 2012 under the mentorship of Akkelies van Nes. He is now PhD candidate at the Department of Urban Planning & Design of The University of Hong Kong and visiting researcher at SPS, working with Akkelies van Nes.
An abstract of his talk is available below:
‘Form syntax’ as an approach to understand urban form quantitatively and promote high degree of urbanity in urban design
Abstract: This seminar will present a method named form syntax capable to understand urban form and urbanity quantitatively and, thereafter, enhance urban design practices as a geodesign approach. The form syntax uses Geographical Information System (GIS) to integrate three analyses tools (i.e. space syntax, spacematrix and mixed-use index) for measuring the essential properties of urban form according to the Conzenian research tradition (i.e. street-network integration, building density, and land-use mixture). These essential components can be quantified and combined to reflect urban form and provides a classification of various degrees of urbanity from a morphological perspective. The proposed form syntax method is tested by applying on a European historical small city Delft and a Chinese megacity Wuhan. Data derived from GPS tracking is introduced as an independent variable to reflect urbanity. Both analyses yield the correlation between morphological features and degrees of urbanity. Such studies not only help to generate knowledge on urban morphology and social physics, but also extend the utility of form syntax as an analytical tool to be applied in different phases of urban design. A GIS plug-in has been provided to help urban designers to aggregate morphological data for site analysis, idea evaluation and design evaluation. A test in a series of Dutch new towns prove that form syntax has the capacity for promoting better urban design practices resulting in vibrant and lively urban places (Yu Ye).
