Quantifying Space, Valuing Design

This is a theory- and practice-based module for first-year MArch students. This semester’s theme, 'Quantifying Space, Valuing Design', examines the relationship between advanced digital tools and the values that inform architectural decision-making.

The module introduces students to the principles and applications of parametric design, developing skills in structuring rules, parameters, and relationships to generate, test and evaluate neighbourhood-scale design options. Alongside technical proficiency, students are required to ground their design strategies in evidence-based research, identifying priorities across the social, economic and environmental dimensions of architecture. These may include affordability, equality and well-being, as well as resource efficiency, carbon reduction and climate resilience.

By embedding such values directly into parametric models, students are challenged to navigate the complexities of competing priorities, making explicit the trade-offs inherent in design practice. The module encourages critical reflection on a central question for contemporary practice: how can we measure what matters, while recognising the limits of measurement?

Throughout the semester, students will produce a 3,000+-word research-based essay presenting your argument on the following question:

How should we design new (greenfield) residential neighbourhoods at the fringes of London, with respect to urban morphology, density, and building form?

The essays will use parametric design tools as ways to test different design options. Students are expected to produce a set of reproducible Grasshopper experiments to generate alternative morphologies, densities and building forms. They will then evaluate these alternatives based on a review of the contemporary literature on the social and environmental value of housing forms. In this way, their work is research-driven both through computational trials in Grasshopper and through engagement with academic literature.

Parametric design on its own does not provide answers. It should be understood as a design system capable of producing multiple iterations in a short period of time. The responsibility of selecting an appropriate design remains with the designer, demanding critical thinking and judgement. These evaluative skills are increasingly important given the widening applications of AI tools in architecture and urban design. This module aims to support the development of such skills.

Urban Morphology

Carmona, M. (2021) Public Places Urban Spaces: The Dimensions of Urban Design. 3rd Edition. New York and London: Routledge.

Analysis

Jacoby, S. (2016). Drawing Architecture and the Urban. Chichester, UK: John Wiley & Sons.

Urban Form and Density

March L (1976) Architecture of Form. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

March L (2002) ‘Architecture and Mathematics Since 1960’ i n Williams K & Rodrigues JF, eds. Nexus IV: Architecture and Mathematics. Florence: Kim Williams Books. 9-33.

CABE (2005) Making Higher Densities Work.

Berghauser Pont, M., & Haupt, P. (2023). Spacematrix: Space, Density and Urban Form - revised edition. TU Delft OPEN Books.

High Rise

Baxter R (2017) 'The High-Rise Home: Verticality as Practice in London', International Journal of Urban and Regional Research 41, 334-352.

Blanc F, Scanlon K & White T (2020) Living in a denser London: How residents see their homes. LSE Cities. See also the catalogue of case studies and interviews.

Easthope H, Crommelin L, Kerr S, Troy L, van den Nouwelant R & Davison G (2022) ‘Planning for Lower-Income Households in Privately Developed High-Density Neighbourhoods in Sydney, Australia', Urban Planning 7(4), 213-228.

Easthope H (2022) The Politics and Practices of Apartment Living. Elgar.

Graham, S. (2015) 'Luxified skies: How vertical urban housing became an elite preserve', City 19(5), 618-645.

Kalantari, S., & Shepley, M. (2020) Psychological and social impacts of high-rise buildings: a review of the post-occupancy evaluation literature. Housing Studies, 36(8), 1147–1176.

Kerr SM, Klocker N, & Gibson C (2020) ‘From backyards to balconies: cultural norms and parents’ experiences of home in higher-density housing', Housing Studies 36(3), 421–443.

Kearns A, Whitley E, Mason P & Bond L (2011) '"Living the High Life"? Residential, Social and Psychosocial Outcomes for High-Rise Occupants in a Deprived Context', Housing Studies 27(1), 97-126.

Lees L & Warwick E (2022) Defensible Space on the Move: Mobilisation in English Housing Policy and Practice. Hoboken, NJ: John Wiley & Sons.

Levin I, Arthurson K & Ziersch A (2014) ‘Social mix and the role of design: Competing interests in the Carlton Public Housing Estate Redevelopment, Melbourne', Cities 40(A), 23-31.

Nethercote M (2022) Inside High-Rise Housing: Securing Home in Vertical Cities. Bristol: Bristol University Press. 151-181.

Newman O (1972) Defensible Space: Crime Prevention Through Urban Design. New York, NY: Macmillan.

White, JT & Serin, B (2021) High‐rise residential development: An international evidence review. UK Collaborative Centre for Housing Evidence

Other Typologies

Eaton, P. (nd) The residential perimeter block: principles, problems and particularities.https://www.alliesandmorrison.com/research/the-residential-perimeter-block-principles-problems-and-particularities

Swenarton M (2015) ‘High Density without High Rise: Housing Experiments of the 1950s by Patrick Hodgkinson’ in Swenarton M, Avermeate T & van den Heuvel D (eds.) Architecture and the Welfare State. Oxon: Routledge.

Urban Form and Carbon

Architecture 2030 (nd) Density and Carbon: An Integrated Approach to Buildings as Infrastructure. Architizer.

LETI (2020) Climate Emergency Design Guide.