Working across boundaries in urban morphology

Urban morphology – the study of urban form – is a subject intrinsically concerned with boundaries. These are often physical, such as boundaries between adjoining plots; or conceptual, including boundaries of various policies and how they affect the physical built form, or the boundaries that morphologists delineate and study, such as between fringe belts or morphological regions. The morphological literature is full of studies of these features. However, this chapter focuses on a set of boundaries that are no less central to morphological research, but which are less explicitly or systematically explored. These are boundaries of academic disciplines, professions, the boundary between academe and professional work, and the boundaries of distance and culture between researchers. Yet these boundaries underlie much of our academic work and published literature – in fact recently, with increasing pressures for innovative, cross-disciplinary work necessarily involving team research and authorship, such boundary issues are likely to affect the majority of publications and funded research projects. We have moved, perhaps scarcely consciously, to a new means of working – a new ecosystem of thinking, research and publication.