**Abstract**

The streets, blocks, lots, and buildings are the main elements of cities' texture. Surrounded by streets and surrounding the buildings, urban blocks invariably interact with these components dialectically, in that it can connect the network of streets and buildings, hence its significance in urban design. However, affected by unsound formal and spatial changes of urban forms in modern and postmodern eras, space coherence reduction led to a loss of blocks' identity. Therefore, we can barely find a comprehensive functional tool structured on a solid understanding to design this very component of the urban morphology. In this regard, this study seeks to define a practical tool for analyzing and designing this crucial element developing an operational, yet expandable, checklist for urban blocks including various factors, from concepts to indices. All these factors are classified under three main concepts: spatial balance, spatial continuity and integration, and durability. In fact, as a primitive step, this research can enable urban designers to understand urban blocks more effectively and use the framework to assess the current situation and design the future.

**Keywords:** urban morphology, blocks, urban design evaluation criteria

### **1. Introduction**

Urban morphology is one of the most important physical approaches to urban form. The term morphology refers to the study of form and deals with shape, form, external structure, or order [1]. Understanding the importance of urban morphology, which involves the design and composition of the urban form and the processes effective in its formation, helps urban designers to recognize the local patterns of development and transformation processes [2]. Referring to the approaches taken by three schools of England, Italy, and France in relation to urban morphology, Moudon states that the typological elements from the perspectives of these three schools of urban morphology focus on three main elements, i.e., street and block, lot, and building [3, p. 7]. Urban block as one of these elements has received little attention compared to other morphological elements.

The formation of this important element took new dimensions after modern times, so that the cities lost their spatial integration due to the construction of single buildings in urban spaces, and as a result, urban context became a collection of amorphous spaces with dispersed neighborhoods and streets and isolated

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*Sustainability in Urban Planning and Design*

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applications with disrupted forms, without interconnected urban masses and blocks that could be representative of space [2].

categories: size, dimensions (2D, 3D), and shape; position; and function and meaning. It should be said that each of these categories can have effects on each other, mutually. In the following, spatial qualities which are created by these factors are also discussed. All the factors relate to the urban blocks could be considered in the three

*Toward Practical Criteria for Analyzing and Designing Urban Blocks*

Many studies have focused on the formal aspects of blocks, especially the size and dimensions of urban blocks, often to achieve optimal sizes for them. Krier [7] who compared and studied different sizes of urban blocks suggested that the sizes of blocks should contribute to integration in the context [2]. Vialard [8] states that such ideas seek to restore a human-scale environment where in buildings and blocks interact closely. In general, in this view, large urban blocks tend to get smaller to achieve the optimum size. One of the effective factors in this regard is the determination of the level of privacy and frontage of buildings, which supports concentrated urban centers [4]. This also induces a sense of transition and transfer

Conzen [11], Bentley [12], and Jacobs [13] advocate small-sized blocks, because they believe that these blocks enhance physical and visual permeability and enhance public awareness of use options. Siksna [4] supports the sustainability and durability of small urban blocks and in research on the desired size of blocks and the design of blocks in four American cities and also considers the durability and sustainability

Talen [10] refers to factors such as the internal connection of blocks and their connectivity, which relates to the relationship between the blocks and the street network. It can be said that very large urban blocks affect connectivity [14]. As Scheer and Petkov [15] state that although these large urban blocks, especially those that include large shopping malls, strengthen the external connection of the blocks with their surrounding environment, they are isolated locally from the environment and have weak internal connections. Maitland [16] considers these major shopping centers as the main factor effective in the separation of blocks and streets. In his opinion, those blocks that contain large shopping centers create privacy in the inner space of the block, rather than at the edges, and though they create footpaths, they limit the connection of these paths to the internal space and weaken or interrupt the pedestrian access to the surrounding area. A similar point can be seen in introverted blocks with cul-de-sacs as a type of POD development, because the cul-de-sacs create autonomous and car-dependent spaces that grow apart from other units in the context and are detached socially and physically from the outside world [2]. Song and Knapp [14] also consider the street intersections, the length of cul-desacs, the block perimeter, and the residential density of blocks as effective on

It is noteworthy that in the close relationship between the street and the block, these patterns require sustainability to evolve so that initial patterns can survive under conditions of change, so one of the factors affecting sustainability is the block

categories:

• position; and

• size, dimensions, and shape;

*DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.5772/intechopen.90504*

• function and meaning.

*4.1.1 Two-dimensional space*

of "small-block cities" as high.

connectivity between neighborhoods.

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**4.1 Size, dimensions, and shape**

between public, semipublic, and private spaces [10].

It can be said that urban blocks have the potential to define and create the balance between lots and streets, so that buildings and streets are considered simultaneously and in parallel with each other. Therefore, attempts were made to define factors required for analyzing this element by examining the views and theories related to blocks. To this end, first, the concepts were extracted and then were clustered by examining their interrelationships. Finally, a categorized list of effective factors in design of urban blocks was developed that can be used as a guideline for the design of this essential element.
