The workshop, “Urban Evo-Devo: Starting the Glossary” (1-3 Oct 2025) marked the beginning of a dialogue on transferring knowledge between evolutionary developmental biology and urban morphology. It was organized by Sergio Porta (University of Strathclyde, Glasgow) & Philipp Mitteroecker (KLI & University of Vienna).

The first half of the workshop featured a series of introductory presentations that set the foundation for interdisciplinary discussion, and establishing conceptual parallels between biological systems and cities. Sergio Porta, Monika Kuffer, Martin Fleischmann, Vítor Oliveira, and Stephen Marshall presented on various aspects of cities, while Gerd Müller provided an overview of the principles of evolutionary and developmental biology.

The second half centered on collaborative discussions aimed at developing a shared glossary to unify definitions and concepts from both disciplines. This glossary seeks to promote a common understanding and facilitate future research at the intersection of urban morphology and evolutionary developmental biology.

Participants also outlined concrete steps to advance the project, agreeing on two primary focus areas: first, to build computational models of urban form development in order to understand the variational properties of urban systems; and second, to continue working on phylogeny from phenetics in urban form.

List of participants:

1.Sergio Porta, Urban Design Studies Unit, University of Strathclyde, Glasgow, UK.

2. Ombretta Romice, Urban Design Studies Unit, University of Strathclyde, Glasgow, UK.

3. Monika Kuffer, Department of Urban and Regional Planning and Geo-Information Management, University of Twente, NL.

4. Martin Fleischmann, Research Teamn on Urban Structure, Charles University, Prague, CZ.

5. Stephen Marshall, The Bartlett School of Planning, University College London, UK.

6. Vitor Oliveira, Research Centre for Territory, Transports and Environment – CITTA, University of Porto, PT.

7. Wolfgang Sonne, School of Architecture and Civil Engineering, Technical University of Dortmund, DE.

8. Olesya Bondarenko, Postdoctoral Fellow, KLI

9. Pascal Hagolani, Postdoctoral Fellow, KLI

10. Isabella Sarto-Jackson, KLI

11. Barbara Fischer, KLI & University of Vienna

12. Martin Schmid, BOKU University Vienna

13. Gerd Müller, KLI

14. Philipp Mitteroecker, KLI & University of Vienna