Conceptions of change in the built environment

Abstract

This paper starts from the premise that urban morphology and process typology make use of a number of different, more or less explicit, quasi-evolutionary conceptions of change. The principal argument of the paper is that the evolutionary conceptions of change as used in these fields could be made more explicit, robust and broadly applicable if they were abstracted and broken free of specific historical periods and sequences. In particular the paper discusses the distinction between ontogenetic change and phylogenetic change. The further argument is made that, as a tautological (and heuristic) framework of ideas, a more abstract conception of change is analogous to ideas of evolution developed in other fields. The paper concludes by suggesting that urban morphology and process typology stand both to gain and suffer from the homologous relationship with evolutionary thinking in the life sciences.