Abstract.
To what extent does the built environment shape human behaviour? This seminar addresses this question through the lens of configurational analysis, examining how spatial structure conditions pedestrian movement, visibility, co-presence, and the environmental circumstances in which crime opportunities may arise. Rather than treating urban space as a passive backdrop to social life, the talk considers it an active organising framework that structures patterns of encounter, perception, accessibility, and exposure in everyday urban settings.

Drawing on insights from Space Syntax and environmental criminology, the seminar explores how the relational properties of urban form help explain variations in movement, intervisibility, and urban safety across multiple scales. Particular attention is given to the role of configurational analysis in assessing how spatial layouts may inhibit or facilitate specific forms of criminal behaviour through the notion of Spatial Crime Impedance. In this perspective, crime is understood not simply as a social phenomenon located in space, but as one partly mediated by the spatial conditions that channel action, interaction, surveillance, and vulnerability.

More broadly, the talk argues that the study of urban configuration provides a rigorous basis for understanding behavioural regularities in cities and for supporting more informed, evidence-based, and human-centred approaches to urban design and planning.

About the Speaker.

Federico Mara is a postdoctoral researcher at the University of Pisa and adjunct lecturer at the University of Genoa. He received his PhD in Urban Science and Regional Planning from the University of Pisa in 2024, with a dissertation on urban design and crime prevention. His research examines planning tools for urban complexity, with a focus on urban safety, crime prevention, and environmental sustainability. He is currently involved in the Horizon Europe Driving Urban Transitions (DUT) EMC² Project, and serves as scientific coordinator of ReQUEST Lab and Pisa coordinator for BIP-UTPS.

www.unipi.it/ateneo/organizzazione/persone/federico-mara-196433/