The Paradigm Evolution and Technological Integration in Urban Morphology: Contexts, Drivers and Future Scenarios

Dear Colleagues,

Urban morphology emerged in the 1960s as an approach to analyzing the physical structure of cities by investigating land use, street patterns, plot patterns and building structures. Since the 2000s, it has further evolved to examine the transformation of these four elements across both historical and contemporary urban contexts.

This Special Issue, released by Land, calls for a paradigm shift in urban morphology to leverage recent advances in digital technology to facilitate research and practice. Contemporary cities are increasingly shaped by emerging technologies such as artificial intelligence (AI), generative AI (GenAI), digital twins, big data analytics, geographic information systems (GIS), immersive visualization and computational modeling. These technologies are redefining how urban spaces are analyzed, planned, designed, managed and experienced. At the same time, evolving urban paradigms—including sustainable urbanism, smart urbanism, resilient cities, tactical urbanism, landscape urbanism and human-centered design—continue to influence the priorities and practices of urban design across diverse contexts.

Despite the growing integration of digital technologies into urban morphological processes, critical questions remain about how technological innovation interacts with the social, cultural, environmental and spatial dimensions of cities. Understanding the drivers, contexts, opportunities and limitations of these transformations has become increasingly important for both researchers and practitioners.

This Special Issue seeks to explore the evolving relationship between urban design paradigms and technological integration while examining future scenarios that may shape more adaptive, inclusive, sustainable and data-informed urban environments.

The goal of this Special Issue is to collect papers (original research articles and review papers) to provide insights into urban design transitions in the age of digital technology and artificial intelligence.

This Special Issue aims to provide a multidisciplinary platform for advancing theoretical, methodological and practical discussions on the evolution of paradigms and the integration of technology into urban morphology. It seeks contributions that critically investigate how emerging technologies influence both urban design and urban morphology thinking, decision-making, governance, visualization, participation, sustainability, mobility, public space design and urban resilience across different geographical and socio-economic contexts.

The topic closely aligns with the scope of Land by addressing land-use transformation, urban development, spatial planning, environmental sustainability and human–environment interactions.

This Special Issue welcomes original research articles, review papers, case studies and conceptual contributions related, but not limited, to the following topics:

- Urban design paradigms and theoretical transitions
- AI, GenAI and machine learning in planning research and practice
- Urban morphology and data-driven urbanism
- Digital twins and simulation technologies
- GIS, remote sensing and spatial analytics
- Sustainable and resilient urban design
- Human-centered and participatory urbanism
- Urban mobility and active transportation
- Climate-responsive and urban forms
- Computational and parametric urban design
- Future scenarios and speculative urbanism
- Ethical and governance challenges in digital urban design

We look forward to receiving your original research articles and reviews.

Prof. Dr. Hisham Abusaada
Prof. Dr. Abeer Elshater
Prof. Dr. Ahmed Ouf
Guest Editors

Manuscript Submission Information

Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. All submissions that pass pre-check are peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as short communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 250 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for assessment.

Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a single-anonymized peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Land is an international peer-reviewed open access monthly journal published by MDPI.

Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 2600 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.

• urban design theory
• urban design history
• digital methods
• urbanism next
• parametric design
• digital twins
• paradigm shifts
• urban form