At the beginning of the conversation, the problem of what could be the most suitable method for reading urban form in an operative way is examined. The problem is made complex by the current conditions of crisis that make a shared truth impossible. Against widespread relativism, it is argued that the architect should possess his own truth (even knowing that many others exist) that entails responsibility and allows choices. The proposed method is based on the notion of process, a circular procedure that starts from the built reality and, seeking the general in the particular, allows at defining a finite series of general principles (abstraction) from which to derive an infinite series of possible outcomes (action) in the production of the form. The process is not continuous, but even fractures should testify a procedural drama (an extreme, sudden transformation) inserted in the wide flow of built environment transformations. The form is not intended as the surface that we perceive of things: it is the way in which a structure is shown to our eyes, how we know, individually, even what we do not see directly.