Hesam Kamalipour
Biographic Data
| ID | 906579 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Hesam Kamalipour |
| GIVEN NAMES | Hesam |
| FAMILY NAME | Kamalipour |
| SIGNATURE | KAMALIPOUR H |
| AFFILIATIONS | Cardiff University |
| ORCID | 0000-0001-7216-7115 |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 27 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 77 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 27 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 0 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2013 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2026 |
| H-INDEX | 5 |
The image of informal settlements
In the Global South, the visibility and image of informal settlements in urban design, planning, and policy discourse have gained increasing attention in recent years, particularly in relation to the politics of upgrading. Informal settlements are often characterised by small grain size and self-built constructions. While these settlements house millions of inhabitants, they are hardly recognised in long-term urban development. This paper explore…
Slum tourism
Slum tourism has become a growing topic in the tourism literature, particularly in relation to the Global South. Simultaneously, a significant body of literature has emerged addressing informal urbanism, primarily focusing on informal settlements. This exploratory review delves into the relevant literature on slum tourism and draws upon the related bodies of knowledge on urban informality and urban tourism. It explores the capacities and limitati…
Co-producing place narratives
This visual essay embarks on a reflective exploration of participatory, place-based storytelling through urban photography. Drawing on a curated collection of photos captured by young people from the Grangetown community in Cardiff during their place-based photo walks, we explore how urban places are constantly being made, unmade, and remade, with a particular focus on youth perspectives. The photographs provide a powerful lens through which we i…
Towards a configurational typology of informal settlements
Informal settlement serves as a critical means in the production of urban space in the Global South. Understanding the productive processes of self-organization and emergent morphological patterns is crucial not only in upgrading and integrating informal settlements but also in informing the practices of urban planning and design for shaping better urban places and public spaces. Contributing to the emerging literature on forms of informal settle…
Forms and spatiality of street vending in informal settlements
Street vending plays a critical role in the informal urban economy of cities in the Global South, serving as a key source of livelihood for the urban poor. However, limited understanding of how street vending works and its relationship with urban forms hinders the development of effective planning policies and design interventions by local authorities. This paper explores the complex dynamics of street vending in the informal settlements of Hanoi…
Mapping informal/formal morphologies over time
The emergence of informal settlements in the Global South has been at the centre of debates regarding sustainable development. While the visibility of informal settlements has been recognised as an important issue in the politics of upgrading projects, there is limited studies that systematically explore the development of informal settlements over time. This study primarily uses historical maps and satellite images as the main sources of data an…
Morphogenesis of forgotten places
Sustainable integration of rural settlements into metropolises is one of the most challenging issues in the Global South. Due to rapid urbanisation, various villages, which often have underdeveloped infrastructure and amenities, have been incorporated into cities and have become Villages-in-the-City (ViCs). ViCs represent neighbourhoods that have not been designed by professionals, but they generally have strong social network and house millions …
Framing urbanities
This visual essay provides a reflective journey through the complexities of urban places. Drawing on curated juxtapositions of photographs from different places, I explore the transformations of public spaces and their role in shaping urban environments. The included frames offer a critical perspective on themes such as urban informality, affordance, temporality, urban transformation, mobility, visibility, performance, and public space. Informed …
Shaping Public Space in Informal Settlements
Informal settlement has become one of the critical ways of producing space and accessing affordable housing, particularly in the context of the global South. Much of the established literature on the shaping of public space focuses on cities of the global North, and little is known about how public spaces are being shaped in more congested and less formal cities of the global South. This paper engages with the challenge of understanding the shapi…
On the ethics of researching informal urbanism
Forms of informal urbanism, ranging from informal settlement to street vending and informal transport, have become integral to how places work across different contexts and scales. In this article, we reflect on the ethics of researching forms of urban informality, with a focus on the capacities and challenges associated with exploring informal urbanism, particularly in the context of what is considered the global South. By drawing on our experie…
A configurational morphogenesis of incremental urbanism
The morphologies of informal settlements constantly change as they undergo processes of incremental adaptations and transformations in relation to emerging circumstances. One of the ways to explore the underlying morphogenic processes governing such adaptations and transformations is to study the morphogenesis of informal settlement. Informal settlements can tell the story of how access networks evolve through incremental processes of change as t…
Mapping the emerging forms of informality
Learning and Teaching Urban Design through Design Studio Pedagogy
Studio-based pedagogy has been central to urban design programmes as it can enable future urban designers to more effectively acquire an understanding of how cities work and critically engage with the role of design intervention. This paper aims to explore the capacities and challenges of learning and teaching urban design through studio pedagogy by drawing on empirical research from a blended urban design studio experiment during the COVID-19 pa…
The Future of Design Studio Education
Urban design studio education aims to prepare future urban designers to more effectively understand how cities work and critically engage with the role of design intervention in the built environment. A design studio is an appropriate setting where this can take place. This paper details the design and delivery of a postgraduate urban design studio subject in the MA Urban Design programme at Cardiff University during the COVID-19 pandemic in the …
Assembling Transit Urban Design in the Global South
The imperative to address the challenge of transforming car-dependent cities and promoting sustainable mobilities requires that we engage with the relationships between urban morphology and forms of urbanity in public spaces surrounding transit nodes. While there has been a surge of interest in investigating the agency of urban planning and design in mitigating urban sprawl and its environmental impacts by creating mixed-use, dense, and walkable …
The morphogenesis of villages-in-the-city
Online Education in the Post Covid-19 Era
Students’ learning experiences and perceptions are markedly influenced by the use of digital technology during the COVID-19 pandemic. Exploring students’ perception of blended online learning, amid the adaptations of the higher education sector in the wake of uncertainty, has become more critical than ever. This paper reflects on the experience of learning and teaching the Research Methods and Techniques subject in the postgraduate programme of M…
Online Education and the Covid-19 Outbreak
The COVID-19 pandemic has become a critical challenge for the higher education sector. Exploring the capacity of this sector to adapt in the state of uncertainty has become more significant than ever. In this paper, we critically reflect on our experience of teaching urban design research methods online during the early COVID-19 lockdown in the UK. This is an exploratory case study with a qualitative approach with an aim to inform resilient pract…
Informal urbanism in the state of uncertainty
Towards an antifragile urban form
Incremental production of urban space
Mapping the visibility of informal settlements
Assemblage Thinking and the City
The last decade has seen an increasing interest in the application of assemblage thinking, in geography, sociology, and urban studies. Different interpretations of the Deleuzian concept of assemblage give rise to the multiple articulations of the term in urban studies so far. This paper aims to review the recently published research on assemblage theory and explore the implications of assemblage thinking in urban studies. The study thus provides …
Sociocultural Context and Vernacular Housing Morphology
Various dimensions and forces tend to transform urban housing morphology over time. These impacting elements do not equally contribute to the formation of dwellings. One of the main va-riables in urban housing is the sociocultural attributes that contribute to the morphological for-mation of different types of human habitats. The study focuses on the relations between sociocul-tural dimension and spatial configuration in terms of design process, …
Safe Place by Design
Different conceptions of crime in design practice, sociology, environmental psychology, and crimi- nology indicate an extensive articulation of crime in relation to the built environment and urban form in the city. Five decades of different studies on urban crime, crime prevention through environmental design, and fear of crime indicate an implicit and gradual movement from deterministic to possibilistic propositions in exploring the relationship…
Mapping the visibility of informal settlements
Incremental production of urban space
Mapping the emerging forms of informality
The morphogenesis of villages-in-the-city
On the ethics of researching informal urbanism
Forms of informal urbanism, ranging from informal settlement to street vending and informal transport, have become integral to how places work across different contexts and scales. In this article, we reflect on the ethics of researching forms of urban informality, with a focus on the capacities and challenges associated with exploring informal urbanism, particularly in the context of what is considered the global South. By drawing on our experie…
A configurational morphogenesis of incremental urbanism
The morphologies of informal settlements constantly change as they undergo processes of incremental adaptations and transformations in relation to emerging circumstances. One of the ways to explore the underlying morphogenic processes governing such adaptations and transformations is to study the morphogenesis of informal settlement. Informal settlements can tell the story of how access networks evolve through incremental processes of change as t…
Mapping informal/formal morphologies over time
The emergence of informal settlements in the Global South has been at the centre of debates regarding sustainable development. While the visibility of informal settlements has been recognised as an important issue in the politics of upgrading projects, there is limited studies that systematically explore the development of informal settlements over time. This study primarily uses historical maps and satellite images as the main sources of data an…
Forms and spatiality of street vending in informal settlements
Street vending plays a critical role in the informal urban economy of cities in the Global South, serving as a key source of livelihood for the urban poor. However, limited understanding of how street vending works and its relationship with urban forms hinders the development of effective planning policies and design interventions by local authorities. This paper explores the complex dynamics of street vending in the informal settlements of Hanoi…
Morphogenesis of forgotten places
Sustainable integration of rural settlements into metropolises is one of the most challenging issues in the Global South. Due to rapid urbanisation, various villages, which often have underdeveloped infrastructure and amenities, have been incorporated into cities and have become Villages-in-the-City (ViCs). ViCs represent neighbourhoods that have not been designed by professionals, but they generally have strong social network and house millions …
Towards a configurational typology of informal settlements
Informal settlement serves as a critical means in the production of urban space in the Global South. Understanding the productive processes of self-organization and emergent morphological patterns is crucial not only in upgrading and integrating informal settlements but also in informing the practices of urban planning and design for shaping better urban places and public spaces. Contributing to the emerging literature on forms of informal settle…
Framing urbanities
This visual essay provides a reflective journey through the complexities of urban places. Drawing on curated juxtapositions of photographs from different places, I explore the transformations of public spaces and their role in shaping urban environments. The included frames offer a critical perspective on themes such as urban informality, affordance, temporality, urban transformation, mobility, visibility, performance, and public space. Informed …
Understanding Continuity and Change in the Persian Vernacular Settlements
Considering the organized complexity of the city problems, the study tends to understand the process of urban transformation concerning the relation between social and spatial practices in the public places. Thus, the study conducts a comparative syntactic analysis of the urban public spaces, within the past five decades, along with the social exploration in order to understand the process of continuity and change in the historic walled city of N…
Sociocultural Context and Vernacular Housing Morphology
Various dimensions and forces tend to transform urban housing morphology over time. These impacting elements do not equally contribute to the formation of dwellings. One of the main va-riables in urban housing is the sociocultural attributes that contribute to the morphological for-mation of different types of human habitats. The study focuses on the relations between sociocul-tural dimension and spatial configuration in terms of design process, …
Safe Place by Design
Different conceptions of crime in design practice, sociology, environmental psychology, and crimi- nology indicate an extensive articulation of crime in relation to the built environment and urban form in the city. Five decades of different studies on urban crime, crime prevention through environmental design, and fear of crime indicate an implicit and gradual movement from deterministic to possibilistic propositions in exploring the relationship…
Collaborative Design Studio on Trial
Addressing interactive and communicative aspects of design process, architectural pedagogy, and practices of urban education, collaborative design studio (CDS) has become a considerable area of interdisciplinary research in the past years. However, a growing body of knowledge in CDS studies shows that the criteria of evidence-based practices, empirical explorations, and theoretical conceptualization of CDS have not been addressed properly yet. Th…
Assemblage Thinking and the City
The last decade has seen an increasing interest in the application of assemblage thinking, in geography, sociology, and urban studies. Different interpretations of the Deleuzian concept of assemblage give rise to the multiple articulations of the term in urban studies so far. This paper aims to review the recently published research on assemblage theory and explore the implications of assemblage thinking in urban studies. The study thus provides …
Mapping the visibility of informal settlements
Incremental production of urban space
Online Education in the Post Covid-19 Era
Students’ learning experiences and perceptions are markedly influenced by the use of digital technology during the COVID-19 pandemic. Exploring students’ perception of blended online learning, amid the adaptations of the higher education sector in the wake of uncertainty, has become more critical than ever. This paper reflects on the experience of learning and teaching the Research Methods and Techniques subject in the postgraduate programme of M…
Online Education and the Covid-19 Outbreak
The COVID-19 pandemic has become a critical challenge for the higher education sector. Exploring the capacity of this sector to adapt in the state of uncertainty has become more significant than ever. In this paper, we critically reflect on our experience of teaching urban design research methods online during the early COVID-19 lockdown in the UK. This is an exploratory case study with a qualitative approach with an aim to inform resilient pract…
Informal urbanism in the state of uncertainty
Towards an antifragile urban form
Learning and Teaching Urban Design through Design Studio Pedagogy
Studio-based pedagogy has been central to urban design programmes as it can enable future urban designers to more effectively acquire an understanding of how cities work and critically engage with the role of design intervention. This paper aims to explore the capacities and challenges of learning and teaching urban design through studio pedagogy by drawing on empirical research from a blended urban design studio experiment during the COVID-19 pa…
The Future of Design Studio Education
Urban design studio education aims to prepare future urban designers to more effectively understand how cities work and critically engage with the role of design intervention in the built environment. A design studio is an appropriate setting where this can take place. This paper details the design and delivery of a postgraduate urban design studio subject in the MA Urban Design programme at Cardiff University during the COVID-19 pandemic in the …
Assembling Transit Urban Design in the Global South
The imperative to address the challenge of transforming car-dependent cities and promoting sustainable mobilities requires that we engage with the relationships between urban morphology and forms of urbanity in public spaces surrounding transit nodes. While there has been a surge of interest in investigating the agency of urban planning and design in mitigating urban sprawl and its environmental impacts by creating mixed-use, dense, and walkable …
The morphogenesis of villages-in-the-city
Shaping Public Space in Informal Settlements
Informal settlement has become one of the critical ways of producing space and accessing affordable housing, particularly in the context of the global South. Much of the established literature on the shaping of public space focuses on cities of the global North, and little is known about how public spaces are being shaped in more congested and less formal cities of the global South. This paper engages with the challenge of understanding the shapi…
On the ethics of researching informal urbanism
Forms of informal urbanism, ranging from informal settlement to street vending and informal transport, have become integral to how places work across different contexts and scales. In this article, we reflect on the ethics of researching forms of urban informality, with a focus on the capacities and challenges associated with exploring informal urbanism, particularly in the context of what is considered the global South. By drawing on our experie…
A configurational morphogenesis of incremental urbanism
The morphologies of informal settlements constantly change as they undergo processes of incremental adaptations and transformations in relation to emerging circumstances. One of the ways to explore the underlying morphogenic processes governing such adaptations and transformations is to study the morphogenesis of informal settlement. Informal settlements can tell the story of how access networks evolve through incremental processes of change as t…
Mapping the emerging forms of informality
Mapping informal/formal morphologies over time
The emergence of informal settlements in the Global South has been at the centre of debates regarding sustainable development. While the visibility of informal settlements has been recognised as an important issue in the politics of upgrading projects, there is limited studies that systematically explore the development of informal settlements over time. This study primarily uses historical maps and satellite images as the main sources of data an…
Morphogenesis of forgotten places
Sustainable integration of rural settlements into metropolises is one of the most challenging issues in the Global South. Due to rapid urbanisation, various villages, which often have underdeveloped infrastructure and amenities, have been incorporated into cities and have become Villages-in-the-City (ViCs). ViCs represent neighbourhoods that have not been designed by professionals, but they generally have strong social network and house millions …
Framing urbanities
This visual essay provides a reflective journey through the complexities of urban places. Drawing on curated juxtapositions of photographs from different places, I explore the transformations of public spaces and their role in shaping urban environments. The included frames offer a critical perspective on themes such as urban informality, affordance, temporality, urban transformation, mobility, visibility, performance, and public space. Informed …
Slum tourism
Slum tourism has become a growing topic in the tourism literature, particularly in relation to the Global South. Simultaneously, a significant body of literature has emerged addressing informal urbanism, primarily focusing on informal settlements. This exploratory review delves into the relevant literature on slum tourism and draws upon the related bodies of knowledge on urban informality and urban tourism. It explores the capacities and limitati…
Co-producing place narratives
This visual essay embarks on a reflective exploration of participatory, place-based storytelling through urban photography. Drawing on a curated collection of photos captured by young people from the Grangetown community in Cardiff during their place-based photo walks, we explore how urban places are constantly being made, unmade, and remade, with a particular focus on youth perspectives. The photographs provide a powerful lens through which we i…
Towards a configurational typology of informal settlements
Informal settlement serves as a critical means in the production of urban space in the Global South. Understanding the productive processes of self-organization and emergent morphological patterns is crucial not only in upgrading and integrating informal settlements but also in informing the practices of urban planning and design for shaping better urban places and public spaces. Contributing to the emerging literature on forms of informal settle…
Geography (22 works) · Sociology (16 works) · Engineering (14 works) · Urban and Rural Development Challenges (12 works) · Urban Design and Spatial Analysis (12 works) · Urban Planning and Governance (12 works) · Human settlement (11 works) · Archaeology (10 works) · Civil engineering (10 works) · Computer Science (9 works)