Urban Porosity. A Morphological Key Category for the Optimization of the CAS’s Environmental and Energy Performance.

Abstract

Although there are a lot researches on
morphological studies of the city form, very scarce efforts have
been applied to systemically comprehend and evaluate urban
morphology using reliable metrics able to describe the formal
properties of the city. More researches are needed in this
direction for better understand the city form’s characteristics
and its performances. This paper illustrates Porosity seen in
IMM as fundamental morphological characteristic of urban
systems, integration of two basic components of urban space:
Volumes and Voids. It aims to highlight the role of Porosity in
the relationship between urban morphology and
environmental-energy performances with objective
considerations and evaluations of its characteristics based on
values and indicators. Hence IMM as systemic methodology
presents some key findings in this process to describe it
objectively. This paper aims to presents an innovative way to
estimate Porosity as a Key Category and anticipates its role in
finding a correct balance between level of Compactness,
Complexity, and Connectivity in the urban system (CAS).
Actually in IMM balancing these determinants (resulting from
the interaction of the Key categories) is considered the
foundation of a best performing CAS (sustainable urban form)
and any of them would not be sufficient on its own to achieve
the result.