Measuring the dimensional DNA of the best neighborhoods around the world.

URBAN FORM ATLAS

The Urban Form Atlas is a collection of scaled maps and infographics of great places around the world. Each plate works like a product cut sheet or a medical x-ray: it strips a familiar place down to its underlying urban form (its streets, lots, and blocks). With the completion of Volume 2, the Atlas now documents twenty places across two volumes.

The project continues the work and research started by Doug Allen, who began documenting block sizes of neighborhoods in the pre- and post-Enabling Statutes era. Urban form is one of the components that most determines whether the built environment succeeds or fails; it is the structural grid of a town or city, and once established it is very difficult, if not impossible, to change. We have 5,000 years of city building to learn from, and the Atlas gathers that record into a reference for current and future work. This Atlas also strengthens the dataset of the Urban Form Standard, our guide for designing more sustainable, adaptable, and beautiful neighborhoods.

Purchase the Urban Form Atlas (PDF)

Volume 2

  1. Calleva Atrebatum UK

  2. Rome IT — Piazza Navona

  3. Rome IT — Piazza del Popolo

  4. Philadelphia PA — Rittenhouse Square

  5. Versailles FR — Gardens and City

  6. Savannah GA — Oglethorpe Plan

  7. London UK — Bedford Square

  8. Paris FR — 9th Arrondissement

  9. Riverside IL — Garden Suburb

  10. Atlanta GA — Midtown

Volume 1

  1. New York NY — West Village

  2. Boston MA — Back Bay

  3. Charleston SC — South of Broad

  4. Los Angeles CA — Arts District

  5. Minneapolis MN — Linden Hills

  6. Santa Fe NM — Downtown

  7. St. Augustine FL — Downtown

  8. New Orleans LA — Marigny

  9. Lake Oswego OR — First Addition

  10. Austin TX — East Austin

Each place is featured on an 11″×15″ plate with detailed analyses of block size and geometry, right-of-way widths, and alleys, drawn over an aerial photograph at a scale of 1″=200′.

Both volumes are available now as PDF downloads. Proceeds directly support the Doug Allen Institute.

Thank you to our sponsors who helped make these volumes possible: Historical Concepts, DPZ CoDesign, and Architectural Overflow.