# The Evolutive Meshed Compact City. Preliminary Results on Structuring the Suburban 15mC around Main Streets

Giovanni Fusco, Meta Berghauser-Pont, Valerio Cutini, Angelika Psenner, Alessandro Araldi, Grégoire Picard, Flavia Lopez, Ioanna Stravoulaki, Federico Mara, Daniel Löschenbrand, et al.

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Giovanni Fusco, Meta Berghauser-Pont, Valerio Cutini, Angelika Psenner, Alessandro Araldi, et al. The Evolutive Meshed Compact City. Preliminary Results on Structuring the Suburban 15mC around Main Streets. DUT Projects Event 2025, Sep 2025, Milan, Italy. hal-05294032

HAL Id: hal-05294032

https://hal.science/hal-05294032v1

Submitted on 2 Oct 2025

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emc² assesses a suburban 15mC model, based on main streets and public space qualities, in five European metropolitan areas and discusses it with urban actors.

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Main streets have historically structured suburban settlements and still shape their growth.

Diachronic comparison of the street network in Versilia, Italy (above) shows how dispersed urbanization obscured structuring elements. Angular centrality analysis in Vienna, Austria (below) reveals how dispersed polycentricity emerges and shifts over time, as well as where potential emc² hotspots can be located.

In today's metropolis, the foreground network operates at different scales—city-wide and neighborhood-wide— channeling mobility and retail opportunities.

Analysis of Gothenburg, Sweden, demonstrates that even suburban areas are structured by well-connected foreground networks. These dual scales are crucial for planning interventions that link metropolitan accessibility with local urban life.

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### Multimodal transit extends this network's capacity, supporting the suburban 15mC.

Level of service analysis in Gothenburg highlights the potential of transit to diffuse accessibility along main streets, integrating pedestrian-oriented 15mC functions into suburban contexts.

### Conviviality depends on fine-grained patterns of human use, such as active façades and public space design.

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Studies of the pilot cases of Drap and Seclin, France, show that the presence of active façades and other micro-scale patterns correlates with stationary activities. Together with configurational centrality and enclosure, these factors are essential for achieving the conviviality expected in 15mC main streets.

### But not all streets in the foreground network have the right level of enclosure to act as main streets.

Automated morphometric analysis of Antibes suburbs, on the French Riviera, measures the degree of enclosure along the network. Only sections with adequate spatial definition can serve as pedestrian-oriented main streets in the 15mC

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### Weak links in the mesh reveal opportunities for densification and targeted intervention.
Integration and Kemeny centrality analysis in Versilia identifies nuclei and elements of high movement but low redundancy. These weak spots point to concrete opportunities for suburban densification strategies.

### 3D models show how buildings, ground-floor uses, and streets combine to guide urban design.

Application of the UPMsmart model in Leopoldau, Vienna, illustrates how spatial development processes influence main street functioning, providing actionable insights for urban design and policy.

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Planning & Design