Gehl Architects: Time to reclaim the streets
…In 2007, Gehl Architects undertook an important study of Flushing Main Street in New York City. We found that 97,000 pedestrians walk along Main Street every day, but they are squeezed into only 30 percent of the street space. Some 56,000 motorists have access to 70 percent of the street space….
Nice presentation with good images!
Picture: Gehl Architects - Ways to add quality to the design of town centres
The problems that the Betalingsring is trying to solve originate not in our city centre but in our suburbs, we need to improve the quality of the town centers that comprise Copenhagen metropolitan region ensuring they are walkable, bike-able and provide everyday amenities. We need to improve connections and accessibility between these town centers and into the centre of Copenhagen. We need broad investment in a variety of transit options from car-sharing to public transit to ensure high quality alternatives and most importantly we need to consider the suburbs and promote medium density and quality housing. We want a city that works in the center and at the edges…
.…We aim to shift the discussion from mere political grandstanding to what ought to be the key question; how do we achieve good quality of life for all Copenhageners, a question which we all need to take seriously and responsibility for achieving. Improving quality of life and making a better city for our shared future is about more than charging motorists to drive into the centre. It should be visionary, ambitious and holistic in approach…
….Just as we have made our city centre walkable, bike-able and attractive – this should be applied more widely creating towns that provide everyday amenities. In our experience with working in transit hubs in both Gothenburg and Skåne, improving the quality within 1km of the transit hubs including park and ride schemes, reliable wifi connections that support working while commuting and other initiatives that improve convenience can greatly increase the attractiveness of public transport and really affect people’s transit choices.
Photo:Lars Gemzøe, Gehl Architects
A cool outdoor exercise area and cycle paths in the Haraldsgade area of Copenhagen.
Towards a fine City for People - Public Spaces and Public Life in London - 2004
My christmas reading - Jan Gehl’s excellent report on London; “Towards a Fine City for People”. Well worth reading! London still has a long way to go. Read the project summary here and the main report here.
Yay! Jan Gehl is coming to the RIBA on 29 November! Everyone should go and see him!! You can book here!
London - Cities for People: LKE Ozolins Lecture by Jan Gehl
29 November 2011
Growing demands for safe, sustainable and healthy cities are driving the search for new planning strategies for a post petroleum age. A people oriented approach to City Planning may constitute a strategy for meeting these challenges. 50 years after Jane Jacobs pointed to the shortcomings of the technocratic city planning principles the time is ripe for meaningful change. Jan Gehl discusses the need for re-orientation of our cities through global case stories from- among others- Copenhagen and New York and illustrates the case for people inspired interventions and city development.
Helle Søholt of Gehl Architects talks about the benefits of cycling and the importance of putting people first when designing city spaces.
These people have just got it right!!
..The connectivity and the diversity of the public space network in a city is extremely important for the life quality of the people living here.
The healthy city, the attractive city, is a city that has to have the humanistic values in the centre of their decision making and that is not an easy task, it sounds very easy but you actually have to visualise people in planning and that makes people that are biking and walking as visible in planning as the people driving in cars…
An amazing talk by Jan Gehl on creating Cities for People! Definitely worth a watch on a Sunday afternoon!
He covers a vast amount of content throughout the talk including; the pressing need to plan for people, walking and cycling; the damaging effects cars have on the scales of planning; the phenomenon of “bird-shit” architecture and ”perfume bottle” sky scrapers and the confusion of building scales! Gehl is eager to point out that good architecture is not about form, but about the interaction between form and life and that life is much more difficult to define and study. Later he mentions that humans seem to know much more about creating the perfect habitat for mountain gorillas than they know about building good urban habitats for mankind!
The Q&A is worth watching also with some nice points on density toward the end!
Gehl Architects - Chongqing pilot a new street hierarchy – putting people first!
In this pilot project, made by the City of Chongqing in collaboration with Energy Foundation and based on the recommendation by Gehl Architects, Chongqing starts to prioritize their pedestrians; pulling side walks through on side streets and making proper pedestrian crossings!
Definitely worth a weekend read! The Danish Cycling Embassy have published “Good Cities for Bicycling” an excerpt from Jan Gehl’s “Cities for People” that deals with creating good cities for cycling! It offers practical advice on what can and needs to be done to make cities fit for cycling!
Improvements to bicycle infrastructure are far cheaper and faster to implement than other infrastructural improvements and also give faster and longer payback!
In many cities, bicycle traffic continues to be not much more than political sweet talk, and bicycle infrastructure typically consists of unconnected stretches of paths here and there rather than the object of a genuine, wholehearted and useful approach. The invitation to bicycle is far from convincing. Typically in these cities only one or two percent of daily trips to the city are by bicycle, and bicycle traffic is dominated by young, athletic men on racing bikes. There is a yawning gap from that situation to a dedicated bicycle city like Copenhagen, where 37 percent of traffic to and from work or school is by bicycle. Here bicycle traffic is more sedate, bicycles are more comfortable, the majority of cyclists are women, and bicycle traffic includes all age groups from school children to senior citizens.
At a time when fossil fuel, pollution and problems with climate and health are increasingly becoming a global challenge, giving higher priority to bicycle traffic would seem like an obvious step to take. We need good cities to bike in and there are a great many cities where it would be simple and cheap to upgrade bicycle traffic.
…The cities that have successfully promoted bicycle traffic in recent decades can be tapped for good ideas and requirements for becoming a good bicycle city. Copenhagen is a compelling example of a city whose longstanding bicycle tradition came under threat from car traffic in the 1950s and 1960s. However, the oil crises in the 1970s were the catalyst for a targeted approach to inviting people to ride their bicycles more. And the message was received: today bicycles make up a considerable part of city traffic, and have helped keep vehicular traffic at an unusually low level compared to other large cities in Western Europe. The experiences from Copenhagen are used in the following to provide a platform for discussion about the good bicycle city.
Our Cities Ourselves - 10 Principles for Transport in Urban Life
A cool free book by the ITDP, Gehl Architects and Nelson Nygaard! It sets out ten easily implementable policies that promote and enhance public transport and create livable, vibrant, environmentally responsible cities.
There are also some great examples and case studies for each policy!
The principles outlined here are intended to inspire us to improve the quality of life in cities today while ensuring their viability tomorrow.
The successful city of the 21st Century will be replete with choices, including nonmotorized, post-fossil fuel travel options. Citizens of the world do not want to sit in bumper-to-bumper traffic. They do not want to walk in mud, nor feel threatened on a simple bike ride to work. They want to be in cities that provide for creative interaction,affordable living and healthy movement.
Cities that meet the challenge of sustainability will leap ahead of others by attracting people who demand a healthy and culturally-rich lifestyle.
