This volume codifies the method to read building structures that have appeared in the past as ‘spontaneous consciousness’ level in a progression of scalar sizes ranging from buildings and clusters of buildings to urban organisms and the territory. Focusing on past architecture is the field of ‘process classification’ that is the key to using history in working as architects in the modern world. We wish to extract the laws of behaviour, formation and mutation of manmade structuring on the various scales of man’s work as we consider this knowledge to be the only possible solution to the architectural crisis that has dragged on for over two centuries. It results in planning based on reviving the tradition of ‘producing’ buildings not as a dogmatic adaptation to past building methods but intended to contemporaneously fit our work into the continuity of laws and behaviour codified in our cultural area; these laws can only be understood and consequently by carefully reading the built environment that surrounds us.

This manual deals with the vast category of specialised buildings that, stemming from basic structures, have gradually reached a whole new level of “intentionality” and “critical consciousness”. As happened with basic buildings, the operational architectural knowledge method we hereby suggest leads to the creation of a multi-layered analysis framework. Indeed, the observation and interpretation of building elements determines the shape, structure and purpose of public buildings. The aim was to create a manual enabling the understanding of specialised buildings following a “processual-typology” methodology. Better understanding of the evolution of a cultural area’s anthropic elements is an architect’s basic tool for an ethical, landscape-friendly approach to design.

The EAAE/ARCC International Conference, held under the aegis of the EAAE (European Association for Architectural Education) and of the ARCC (Architectural Research Centers Consortium), is a conference organized every other year, in collaboration with one of the member schools / universities of those associations, alternatively in North America or in Europe. The EAAE/ARCC Conferences began at the North Carolina State University College of Design, Raleigh with a conference on Research in Design Education (1998); followed by conferences in Paris (2000), Montreal (2002), Dublin (2004), Philadelphia (2006), Copenhagen (2008), Washington (2010), Milan (2012) and Honolulu (2014). The conference discussions focus on research experiences in the field of architecture and architectural education, providing a critical forum for the dissemination and engagement of current ideas from around the world.

'This is a textbook about cities or, more precisely, about the physical form of cities. It provides an overview of the main elements of urban form—streets, street blocks, plots and buildings—structuring our cities and the fundamental agents and processes of transformation shaping these elements. It applies this analytical framework to describe the evolution of cities over history as well as to explain the functioning of contemporary cities. After the initial focus on the 'object' (cities), the book introduces how different schools of thought have been dealing with this object since the emergence of Urban Morphology, as the science of urban form, in the turning to the twentieth century. Finally, the book identifies the main contributions of urban morphology to cities, societies and economies. This second edition of the book offers updated and more accurate knowledge on several morphological issues, presents expanded contents, and it has a more explicit didactic nature, including a set of exercises in the end of each chapter, that will help teachers and students (in architecture, geography, planning, history, sociology and urban studies) in acquiring and consolidating their urban morphological knowledge.

Chapter “A Multi-functional Design Approach to Deal with New Urban Challenges” is available open access under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License via link.springer.com.

The escalating interdependecy of nations drives global geopolitics to shift ever more quickly. Societies seem unable to control any change that affects their cities, whether positively or negatively. Challenges are global, but solutions need to be implemented locally. How can architectural research contribute to the future of our changing society? How has it contributed in the past? The theme of the 10th EAAE/ARCC International Conference, “Architectural Research Addressing Societal Challenges”, was set to address these questions. This book, Architectural Research Addressing Societal Challenges, includes reviewed papers presented in June 2016, at the 10th EAAE/ARCC International Conference, which was held at the facilities of the Faculty of Architecture of the University of Lisbon. The papers have been further divided into the following five sub-themes: a Changing Society; In Transit – Global Migration; Renaturalization of the City; Emerging Fields of Architectural Practice; and Research on Architectural Education. The EAAE/ARCC International Conference, held under the aegis of the EAAE and of the ARCC, is a conference organized every other year, in collaboration with one of the member schools/ universities of those associations, alternatively in North America or in Europe.