Summary: This book brings together a dozen of Philip Steadman’s essays and papers on the geometry of architectural and urban form, written over the last 12 years. New introductions link the papers and set them in context. There are two large themes: a morphological approach to the history of architecture, and studies of possibility in built form. Within this framework the papers cover the geometrical character of the building stock as a whole; histories of selected building types; analyses of density and energy in relation to urban form; and systematic methods for enumerating building plans and built forms. They touch on a range of key topics of debate in architectural theory and building science. Illustrated with over 200 black and white images, this collection provides an accessible and coherent guide to this important work.

Contents: Introduction Part 1: Plan geometry, rectangular and circular 1.Why are most buildings rectangular? 2.Architectural doughnuts: circular-plan buildings, with and without courtyards Part 2: The geometry and ‘evolution’ of building types 3. The contradictions of Jeremy Bentham’s Panopticon penitentiary 4. Samuel Bentham’s Panopticon 5. The changing department store building, 1850 to 1940 6. Evolution of a building type: the case of the multi-storey garage Part 3: Built form and urban form: geometry, energy and density 7. (with Stephen Evans and Michael Batty) Wall area, volume and plan depth in the building stock 8. (with Ian Hamilton and Stephen Evans) Energy and urban built form: an empirical and statistical approach 9.Density and built form: integrating ‘Spacemate’ with the work of Martin and March Part 4: Theoretical approaches to possibility in built form 10. (Frank Brown with Philip Steadman) The analysis and interpretation of small house plans: some contemporary examples 11. Generative design methods, and the exploration of worlds of formal possibility 12. (with Linda Mitchell) Architectural morphospace: mapping worlds of built forms.

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