Complexity in Urban Spatial Analysis. Interdependence of Climate Change Impacts and City Morphology

Cities are the expression of a multitude of strongly intertwined systems that vary from people, infrastructure, cultural fabric and urban planning. These frameworks are classified as complex systems, characterized by their tremendous complexity that requires great efforts in analysis and understanding. Climate change exposes these systems to fluctuating dynamics, to which governance must adapt in terms of sustainability and resiliency. Complex system science provides theoretical principles for analysing interaction between urban habitats and climate drivers. This paper highlights the role of urban morphology in urban environmental analysis that focus on overheating and flooding phenomena. This approach is typological in nature and delves into the urbanism problem of representing with a type aspect like dynamic responsiveness and correspondence to the environmental profile. A trade-off must be confronted: how can a complex urban system be sufficiently analysed without increasing the overall complexity? By confronting theoretical frameworks on urban complexity, the paper emphasizes three paradigms with which to analyse several examples: heterogeneity, dynamism and structure. Two main climatic impacts are selected in the Urban Heat Island and Flash Flooding, particularly significant in a range of European cases. The trade-off is obtained by screening the examples with the selected interpretation, showing the niches of application for different modelling techniques. Understanding how urban morphology reacts to different types of analysis can help researchers and architects give different meaning to the form and the content of the city. Subsequently, a more informed, dynamic and responsive spatial understanding could bring forth innovation in policy making and land use planning.