An Integrated Approach: Combining the Historico-Geographical and the Configurational Approaches

This chapter goes one step further debating how the historico-geographical and configurational approaches can be combined to offer better description, explanation and prescription of the physical form of the built environment. A conceptual framework is developed to understand how and why urban form changes on the one hand, and how urban form conditions and affects urban lives on the other hand. In other words, this chapter brings an insight into the character of urban form in terms of its historicity and spatial potentials in generating socio-economic vibrancy, as the two sides of a coin. A methodological framework is developed to firstly explore how the integrated approach could contribute to plan unit recognition by systematically relating the results of both approaches, that is, the integration-segregation patterns of the street network with the distribution of hierarchical plan units. Secondly, it explores how the integrated approach could evaluate landscape unit based on the historical expressiveness and spatial potentials of urban form. It is anticipated that this evaluation could provide guidance for future management of historical urban landscape regarding to what to change and what to maintain and contribute to a synergy between conservation and redevelopment.