Narrating and explaining urban stories through inherited visual urban vocabulary

Abstract

This article proposes and formulates the visual urban vocabulary for tacit, intuitive, experiential, but none-the-less fast, plausible, generative, informative, sketch-like composition and visualization of urban stories. Through visual and socially ‘inherited’ clues, the authors explain the complexities of urban spaces, their elements, interrelations and cause–effect phenomena to expert and non-expert public alike. The rules, syntax and overall advantages of such a vocabulary are grounded in the existing linguistic, cognitive, psychological theories, visual sociology and theories of urban design, combined and supported by the authors’ own research into visualizations and tools for evaluating, understanding and presenting urban spaces. With many illustrations, the article demonstrates the use for – and the use of – generic urban stories in discussions about urbanity, urban environments, livable places, etc. and positions them into educational, research and participatory planning and commercial contexts.