Contributions to a Theory of Land

Lars Marcus, an architect, is a founding member of the Spatial Morphology Group (SMoG) at Chalmers University of Technology in Gothenburg, Sweden, where he is a Professor of Urban Design. He previously held a professorship at the KTH Royal Institute of Technology and is currently a Fellow of the Royal Swedish Academy of Engineering Sciences. He is also the founder and partner of Spacescape, a consultancy firm specializing in spatial analysis, design support, and policy development for architectural and urban projects involving architects, municipalities, and real estate companies. He has pioneered research-based architectural services and was among the first to introduce the Space Syntax research approach in Sweden.

For the past 25 years, he has conducted research on how the built environment, regarded as spatial capital, shapes and influences everyday life in cities and urban systems more broadly. Over the long term, this contributes to fundamental societal issues such as social integration, local markets, and ecosystem services. He argues that urban morphology functions as a form of technology within urban design, supporting and guiding nearly all human activity.

In 2025, he published his groundbreaking book Measures and Meanings of Spatial Capital: Contributions to a Theory of Land, emphasizing that spatial form is essential for building resilience into highly complex urban systems (MIT Press).