About ISUF – International Seminar on Urban Form

ISUF’s aim is the international and interdisciplinary sharing of ideas, methods and findings concerned with urban form. Beginning in 1994 with the coming together of some 20 architects, geographers, planners and historians, representing four different language areas, it now has some 600 individual and institutional members from about 50 countries.

ISUF COUNCIL

OUR LEADERSHIP

The activities of ISUF are governed by its Council, composed of Officers and elected members, which meets once a year to review the association’s business.

The general activities of the association are coordinated by its Executive Committee, constituted by the President, Secretary-General, Treasurer, ‘Urban Morphology’ Editor and Coordinator of the Regional Networks.

The publication of the association’s journal is in the hands of an Editor, two Associate Editors, two Assistant Editors, an Editorial Assistant and an Editorial Board. Special projects are coordinated by the chairs and secretaries of various Commissions and Working Parties. All administrative positions in the organization are honorary and unpaid.

2022 COUNCIL MEMBERS

Vítor Oliveira

President
Porto, Portugal

Vítor Oliveira is the president of the International Seminar on Urban Form (ISUF) and president of the Portuguese-language Network of Urban Morphology (PNUM). He is principal pesearcher (with Habilitation) at the Research Centre for Territory, Transports and Environment (CITTA / FEUP) and professor of Urban Morphology and Urban Planning at UL. He is associate editor of ‘Urban Morphology’, advisory editor of ‘The Urban Book Series’ (Springer) and founding editor of the ‘Revista de Morfologia Urbana’ (2013-18).

His latest books are Urban morphology: an introduction to the study of the physical form of cities (2022, 2016; translated to Chinese, Persian, Portuguese and Turkish), Morphological research in planning, urban design and architecture (2021), JWR Whitehand and the historico-geographical approach to urban morphology (2019) and Teaching urban morphology (2018). He has translated, with Cláudia Monteiro, MRG Conzen’ s classic book Alnwick, Northumberland: a study in town-plan analysis. His books and papers received more than 2.500 citations (Google Scholar).

More information at https://vitoroliveira.fe.up.pt/.

Tolga Unlu

Secretary-General
Adana, Turkey

Tolga Ünlü has been a member of the Department of City and Regional Planning at Çukurova University, Adana, Turkey since 2020. Before then, he took many responsibilities at the Department of City and Regional Planning at Mersin University between 2006 and 2020, after taking bachelor, graduate and PhD degrees at the Department of City and Regional Planning, Middle East Technical University.

His research is focused on urban morphology, urban design and planning practice with a particular attention on urban growth and development of fringe belts, and on the relationship between research and practice in urban morphology and planning. Had articles and book chapters on physical development and planning history of Turkish cities as well as their morphological transformation. He had a founding role in inauguration of Turkish Network of Urban Morphology in 2014.

Besides having a position of Professorship at Çukurova University, Turkey, on the field of urban morphology and planning, Tolga Ünlü has been a colleague in both Urban Morphology Research Group since 2012 and International Seminar on Urban Form (ISUF) since 2009. He has been undertaking the role of Secretary General since 2021.

Peter Larkham

Editor of
Urban Morphology Birmingham, England

Peter J Larkham is Editor of Urban Morphology. He has been a member of the journal’s
editorial team since its foundation by Jeremy Whitehand in 1997. He has wide editorial
experience, being currently on the Editorial Boards of Planning Perspectives, the Journal of Urban Design, Urban Design International and Sustainability. He has also edited a number of books including Authentic reconstruction: authenticity, architecture and the built heritage (Bloomsbury, 2018, with John Bold and Rob Pickard), Shapers of urban form (Routledge, 2014, with Michael P. Conzen) and Alternative visions of post-war reconstruction: creating the modern townscape (Routledge, 2014, with John Pendlebury and Erdem Erten), and co-authored The everyday experiences of reconstruction and regeneration: from vision to reality in Birmingham and Coventry (Routledge, 2019, with David Adams).

He is Professor of Planning at Birmingham City University, where he moved after a PhD at the University of Birmingham supervised by Jeremy Whitehand, and postdoctoral research funded by the Leverhulme Trust and British Academy. His main research interest is in urban change, particularly how towns and cities changed after the catastrophe of Second World War damage; but he has also worked on urban conservation, urban and landscape design, and urban agriculture. In 2022-23 he celebrated 30 years at Birmingham City University and his 500 th academic publication. These have generated 6002 citations according to the AD Scientific World Scientists Ranking 2023.

Heather Barrett

Treasurer
Worcester, England

Heather Barrett is a principal lecturer in human geography at the University of Worcester. Her teaching and research interests relate to urban geography and planning, particularly urban morphology, and urban conservation planning. She has published research in these areas and is also the co‐author of the undergraduate student textbook Urban Geography published by Routledge.

Recent publications:

Barrett, H.J., (in press) ‘British urban morphology – time to take stock and regroup?’ Serbian Architectural Journal
Barrett, H.J., (2023) ‘Conservation Planning and the Development Trajectory of the Historic Core of Worcester, England.’ Urban Planning 8(1) 151-164.
Barrett, H.J., (2022) ‘Protecting the past and planning the future: conservation planning and urban change in historic city centres’ in Feliciotti, A. and Fleishmann, M (eds.) “Urban Form and the Sustainable and Prosperous City” Annual Conference Proceedings of the XXVIII International Seminar on Urban Form, pp. 1439-1453.

Giuseppe Strappa

Regional Networks Coordinator
Rome, Italy

President:	Vítor Oliveira (2025) Universidade do Porto, Portugal vitorm@fe.up.pt
Secretary-General:	Tolga Ünlü (2025) Çukurova University, Turkey tolgaunlu@gmail.com
Treasurer:	Heather Barrett (2025) University of Worcester, UK h.barrett@worc.ac.uk
Editor:	Peter Larkham (2023) Birmingham City University, UK Peter.Larkham@bcu.ac.uk
Regional Networks Coordinator:	Giuseppe Strappa (2023) Sapienza – Università di Roma, Italy gstrappa@yahoo.com
Councillors:	Anna Rita Amato (2025) Rome, Italy Anna Agata Kantarek (2025) Cracow University of Technology, Poland Teresa Marat-Mendes (2025) Instituto Universitério de Lisboa ISCTE-IUL, Portugal Alice Viallard (2025) Northumbria University, UK (Dates in brackets denote ends of terms of service) Michael P Conzen (2027) University of Chicago, USA Michelle le Roux (2027) Urban Collaborations, South Africa Shigeru Satoh (2027) Waseda University, Japan

HISTORY OF ISUF

ISUF CONSTITUTION