EPUM is a transnational research project which aims at the integration of different, often isolated urban form research and teaching approaches through pedagogic innovation and Information and Communication Technology (ICT). It aims to develop an innovative, open and inclusive system of teaching and training in urban form from a multidisciplinary perspective, which is capable of enabling the current and future generation of planning and design professionals to address comprehensively and effectively the variety of issues and challenges faced by contemporary cities. Contemporary cities are characterized by a variety of forms of socio-spatial patterns and increasing social, economic, and political fragmentation strongly related to their urban form. Urban municipal authorities, policy makers, urban designers and scholars are all called to respond to such challenges and a variety of approaches on understanding urban form, both theoretical and operational, has developed. However, these are characterised by specific national trends and have seen the emergence of separate schools of thought (what may be termed the ‘process typological approach’, the ‘historic geographical approach’, the ‘configurational approach’, and the ‘relational approach’). Each approach tends to be associated with a main research centre or with certain individual researchers and all have traditionally been applied in isolation. The teaching of urban form analysis in higher education institutions across Europe is also addressing contemporary cities’ issues from often isolated perspectives based on the aforementioned different schools of thought, either reflecting specific national educational trends or opting for a globalized approach cutting the knots with local specificities. There is still a lack of learning spaces which foster a multidisciplinary thinking about contemporary cities’ issues and which enable the participation of all relevant stakeholders in the debate about contemporary cities’ problems and solutions. There is an obvious need to establish a network linking the different approaches, developing learning platforms that foster the exchange of knowledge, providing opportunities for contact between members and encouraging the dissemination of findings both nationally and internationally. This coming together of researchers, educators and learners from different language, geographical areas and disciplines will provide the basis for a multidisciplinary field and the opportunity to establish common theoretical foundations for the growing number of urban form studies in many parts of the world. It will provide the means to engage all stakeholders currently within introverted disciplinary, institutional and geographical boundaries, in a fruitful discussion through a collaborative open learning curriculum supported by a blended learning approach. Furthermore, the engagement of relevant stakeholders (learners, teachers, professionals, policy makers and local societies) with the project’s activities will establish a dedicated and sustained community around urban form research and pedagogy. EPUM’s objectives to bridge across disciplinary, research and institutional boundaries aim to address real and timely issues concerning cities by providing an interactive blended learning environment. The field is multi-disciplinary and the subject as multi-faceted as the city. Multidisciplinary urban form studies, research and innovative pedagogy have the potential to contribute to the understanding and management of urban development in a period of unprecedented change.
The international project “Emerging Perspectives on Urban Morphology: Researching and Learning through multiple practices” is a transnational research project which aimed at the integration of different urban form research and teaching approaches through pedagogic innovation and Information and Communication Technology (ICT). It developed an innovative, open and inclusive system of teaching and training in urban form from a multidisciplinary perspective, which is capable of enabling the current and future generation of planning and design professionals to address comprehensively and effectively the variety of issues and challenges faced by contemporary cities. Contemporary cities are characterized by a variety of forms of socio-spatial patterns and increasing social, economic, and political fragmentation strongly related to their urban form. Urban municipal authorities, policy makers, urban designers and scholars are called to respond to such challenges and a variety of approaches on understanding urban form, both theoretical and operational, has developed. However, these are characterized by specific disciplinary and geographical trends and have seen the emergence of separate schools of thought. The teaching of urban form analysis in higher education institutions across Europe is also addressing contemporary cities’ issues from often isolated perspectives based on the aforementioned different schools of thought, either reflecting specific national educational trends or opting for a globalized approach cutting the knots with local specificities. There is still a lack of learning spaces which foster a multidisciplinary thinking about contemporary cities’ issues and which enable the participation of all relevant stakeholders in the debate about contemporary cities’ problems and solutions. EPUM identified the need to establish a network linking the different approaches, developing learning platforms that foster the exchange of knowledge, providing opportunities for contact between members and encouraging the dissemination of findings. The coming together of researchers, educators and learners from different geographical areas and disciplines provided the opportunity to establish common theoretical foundations for the growing number of urban form studies in many parts of the world. It also provided the means to engage all stakeholders currently within introverted disciplinary, institutional and geographical boundaries, in a fruitful discussion through a collaborative open learning curriculum supported by a blended learning approach. To address the project’s objectives a blended learning approach was developed to a) integrate the learning activities between different institutions carried out in the project’s shared digital platform (small-scale activities) with the face-to-face activities carried out at courses of the participant institutions through open learning processes, b) compare the theoretical, conceptual and methodological basis of the different urban form approaches, identifying their main strengths and weaknesses, and explore the possibilities to combine some of these different ways of describing, explaining and prescribing the physical form of cities through the teaching of urban morphology. To this end, the project has developed collaborative learning activities, dissemination events, publications and a digital environment aimed at academics (students, teachers and researchers) and local stakeholders (authorities, policy makers, communities and practitioners) involved in urban form issues. Eight key publications illustrate the project’s outcomes: four Briefing Papers present essential information and resources on each different approach to urban morphology; the Collaborative Open Learning Curriculum booklet includes guidelines to integrate learning activities across different disciplines leading to curriculum innovation in participating institutions; the Open Learning Resources booklet includes an array of open access learning resources related to urban morphology, which cover a wide range of formats and representations to meet educational standards and address the needs of different learning styles; the Online Training Tools report includes guidelines to design and implement blended learning collaborative design processes with the support of digital environments; the Collaborative Learning Workshops booklet illustrates the methodology and outcomes of the case studies of the historic centre of Porto and the histor¬ic centre of Nicosia chosen to develop and build knowl¬edge of the full potential of a) combining and coordinating different approaches to urban form studies and b) shared collaborative activities in a blended learning environment. EPUM brought together five partners from different countries in South and Central Europe: the University of Cyprus (Lead), La Sapienza University Rome, University of Porto, TU Wien and Space Syntax Ltd.