Recovering the Habitat concept within Urban Morphology

Abstract

[EN] The purpose of this paper is to provide an opportunity to explore the Habitat debate within ISUF. We quest that within this concept, as placed by Anne Vernez Moudon in her inaugural paper to Urban Morphology, there is an intrinsic call towards a needed equilibrium between the various dimensions of urban form and a trans-disciplinary approach to the study of urban form, which deserves furthei investigation. This paper presents the first results of an on-going investigation, which seeks to recuperate the concept of Habitat within urban morphology, while identifying how the concept of Habitat was first explored in a number of international organizations, mostly by the geography and architcture fields, and how did it evolved over time. The early results of this investigation expose the impacts of such evolution on the various problematic and scales of approach of the urban environment, through various historically, disciplinary and geographical contexts. Finally it is believed that the promotion of the study of Habitat today, throughout the integration of typo-morphology, as a methodology, could reinforce the role of social sciences and of transdisciplinary practices within the study of urban form.