Epsilon Archive for Student Projects

Abstract

How do you build cities that are exciting and nice to live in? What factors in the physical environment is it that make you feel comfortable in some of the places in the city, but in other places not comfortable at all? Why do some cities have a rich public life in their public realm, while the public realm in other cities is abandoned and empty? How do you plan environments that support people’s physical and mental health? These are questions that I put to myself, and that people who are interested in or working with physical planning should ask themselves. That is why I have been studying an authority on the subject, the Danish Professor Jan Gehl, who has been researching and working with peoplefriendly public realms for 50 years. He is best known for his book Life between buildings that has been a text-book in the education of architects for more than 30 years, and to have initiated Copenhagens most famous pedestrian street, Strøget, to show his theory of how people will use the public realm, if it’s only got the right qualities. The project showed positive results, and was expanded to include other streets in the citycentre of Copenhagen.Today he is the owner of, together with Helle Søholt, the architecht’s office ‘Gehl Architechts – Urban Quality Consultants’. Together with their 41 employees they broadcast their knowledge in building socially sustainable cities. The forms for their work is speaking at big scale conferences as well as smaller gatherings for people who are involved with creating better cities for people. They arrange workshops and masterclasses, they sell books and continue research in city life and public spaces. They also work as consultants in different projects all over the world. In this work I will present the most important theses in Jan Gehl’s theory.