Urban morphology and urban design

There has recently been a flurry of discussion in this journal about the relationship between urban morphological research and practice (Hall, 2008; Samuels, 2008; Whitehand, 2007). As a practising architect and planner, I have frequently applied the concepts of typology and morphology in my design work. 1 have used neighbourhood morphology to develop a successful architectural parti that married a new type to an older pattern: I have used the morphological narrative of a dying small downtown to develop its urban plans and guidelines for its recovery (Scheer and Scheer, 1998).