Shape grammar rules decode traditional Mosul house design

The study, published open access in the journal City, Territory and Architecture, applies standard shape grammar, a formal design language, to decode the courtyard-centered houses that form a core part of Mosul’s built heritage.

Traditional Mosul houses are described in the study as primary examples of the city’s architectural heritage, marked by an inner courtyard, a unique architectural identity and rich spatial composition. The authors note that this identity has begun to fade rapidly under urban transformations and ongoing conflicts in the region, which motivates the search for a precise, methodical way to capture and reconstruct it.

The method itself is deliberately formal. From this analysis they derived 22 generative rules organized across five design phases, a standardized vocabulary of “shape rules” that governs the floor plan language of the historical houses.

To test whether the rules actually captured the tradition rather than just describing a few examples, the team generated five new house designs and three hybrid designs using the rule system. These were then evaluated with a structured questionnaire administered to 40 academic architects from the University of Mosul, who examined the similarities and differences between the newly generated designs and the original houses. According to the authors, the results confirm that standard shape grammars can effectively encode, reproduce and expand the design logic of traditional houses in Mosul.

The researchers present the approach as a methodological tool for reconstructing the spirit of heritage in a contemporary style, meaning that the encoded rules could guide new designs that remain recognizably within the traditional Mosul idiom rather than merely copying individual buildings. The work is being shared early as peer-reviewed, accepted research with a permanent DOI, and the version is subject to further edits before the final Version of Record appears.

Subject of Research: Encoding the floor plan logic of traditional Mosul courtyard houses using standard shape grammar rules

Article Title: Encoding Heritage: standard shape grammars for reconstructing traditional Mosul houses

Article References: Hamid, R. M., & Mahmood, R. S. (2026). Encoding Heritage: standard shape grammars for reconstructing traditional Mosul houses. City, Territory and Architecture. https://doi.org/10.1186/s40410-026-00327-6

Image Credits: AI Generated

DOI: 10.1186/s40410-026-00327-6

Keywords: shape grammar, Mosul, architectural heritage, courtyard houses, generative design, Old City of Mosul, design rules, reconstruction, Iraq, built heritage, Encoding, Heritage