Transitional Morphological Scales: The Impact of Gigamorphologies on the Unitary Expression within the Urban Morphology Sciences

In 2002, De Jong and Rosenmann postulated scalar variations within the scientific framework of urban, architectural, and technical research. Their scale protocol moves from the submaterial scale to the global scale and includes morphological positions such as building segment, buildings, building complexes, ensemble, and neighbourhoods. This paper critically reflects on De Jong and Rosenmann’s suggested scale order, questioning its contemporary validity for the morphological sciences in the context of giga-scale urbanisation. It advocates for the revision and possible implementation of new morphological scale orders that incorporate current urbanisation developments. Using international case studies, with a focus on megablocks and compact-city-territory scales, the study introduces new scalar orders relevant to urban morphology. The paper concludes by identifying a transition from traditional scale orders toward mega-morphological scales and new urbanisation units based on compact-city-territory phenomena, emphasising the need for scalar revision in the continuing development of urban morphology as a science.