A sample of what we do ..

We’ve been working in a range of contexts:

We spent three decades focussing on the Chinese context. Here we investigated how morphological analysis can inform urban design to preserve a city’s cultural identity; how design policies changed along with the market change to promote places; and inequality in accessing urban parks and waterfronts in cities through the morphological perspective etc. Currently, we examine the socio-cultural and economic impacts of urban types identified through morphometrics in Nanjing.

But we also run shorter projects in other interesting areas, for example:

In Isfahan for example we studied the relationships between the form of the city and a local Index of Multiple Deprivation, adapted from the established UK index, finding interesting interpretations for patterns (4); in Amsterdam we studied how the spatial form of certain areas in the city seems to link consistently with the presence of AirB&B (7); In London we looked at the physical form of 5 gentrified neighbourhoods to ascertain which spatial properties are consistent across them all, to try and understand what part they might play in attracting gentrification (5); in the UK we are studying the relationships between urban form and walkability, adding the design and form of space alongside street networks (3); in Kochi we studied points of convergence between urban form and women perceived safety (6).

To learn more about the spatial analysis foundation of the work cited above, you should read about urban morphomethics, starting from these 2 papers:

• Fleischmann, M., Feliciotti, A., Romice, O. & Porta, S. 2022. Methodological foundation of a numerical taxonomy of urban form. Environment and Planning B: Urban Analytics and City Science. 49, 4, p. 1283-1299.
• Jong Wang, Martin Fleischmann, Alessandro Venerandi, Ombretta Romice, Monika Kuffer, Sergio Porta.2023. EO + Morphometrics: Understanding cities through urban morphology at large scale, Landscape and Urban Planning, Volume 233, 104691, ISSN 0169-2046, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.landurbplan.2023.104691.
• Venerandi, A; Mellen H; Romice, O; Porta S (2025). Walkability indexes: the state of the art and future directions. In: Sustainability. Sustainability. 16, 16, 24 p., 6730.
• Venerandi, A., Feliciotti, A., Mokhtarzadeh, S., Taefnia, M., Romice, O., & Porta, S. (2024). Urban form and socioeconomic deprivation in Isfahan: An urban MorphoMetric approach. Environment and Planning B: Urban Analytics and City Science, 0(0). https://doi.org/10.1177/23998083241245491.
• Venerandi, A., Zanella, M., Romice, O., & Porta, S. (2016). The Form of Gentrification. arXiv preprint arXiv:1411.2984. In: Environment & Planning B. DOI: 10.1177/0265813516658031.
• Venerandi, A., Romice, O., Chepelianskaia, O., Kalyan, K., Bhardwaj, N., Viese, V., Porta, S., 2021. Urban Morphometrics and the Intangible Uniqueness of Tangible Heritage. An Evidence-Based Generative Design Experiment in Historical Kochi (IN). Heritage, 4(4), 4399–4420. doi:10.3390/heritage4040243.
• Venerandi, A., Feliciotti, A., Fleischmann, M., Kourtit, K. and Porta, S., 2023. Urban form character and Airbnb in Amsterdam (NL): A morphometric approach. Environment and Planning B: Urban Analytics and City Science, 50(2), pp.386-400.

Get in touch and join us! Network activities would include research seminars, symposiums, lecture series, joint publications and joint grant applications. We will also support young researchers through collaboration with and mentoring from senior members of the network.