Speakers and events

Jan Gehl

• Jan Gehl
• Events that Jan participated in
• Media coverage
• Key messages
• Follow up
• Resources
• Jan Gehl's Biography
• Vision 
  

  Jan Gehl

Jan Gehl is a well-known architect from Copenhagen, Denmark. He specialises in designing cities for people, in particular cities that are friendly to pedestrians. Jan is a Professor of Architecture at the University of Copenhagen, and also has a private practice that has assisted cities all around the world develop their urban areas into lively, vibrant, and attractive places to be.

He has made a major contribution to the urban design of many cities, including London, Melbourne, Adelaide, Wellington, and Dubai. He will shortly be beginning a major project assisting the local and state authorities with the CBD area of Sydney. Jan's contribution is both practical and procedural, that is, he makes a contribution to both the outcome and the way in which planning authorities think and work.

Jan recently visited Auckland at the invitation of the Auckland Regional Council. He was here from the 16th to the 23rd October.

The purpose of his Auckland visit was:

1. to share international best practice from his experience
2. contribute to a number of projects that are currently being undertaken in the Auckland region
3. raise the profile of urban design as a concept, and good urban design principles in particular.

The key audiences for his visit were:

1. local authority politicians and staff
2. the urban design community, including architects, planners, and urban and landscape designers
3. other audiences included property owners and developers, and the general public.

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The table below lists a summary of events that Jan participated in:

Media coverage

1. Radio NZ invited him to be a guest of Kim Hill on Saturday Morning
2. Bob Dey reported on his visit and message on his website.

The New Zealand Herald were also interested, but did not have the staff resource to commit to it at the time.

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Key messages

A long list of good ideas and concepts were received during the course of the week by the audiences that Jan spoke to. The following is a summary of these:

• traditionally, the priority order of planning in cities was to plan for Buildings-Space-Life. Now, particularly for cities that have taken innovative approaches, the order is Life-Space-Buildings
• a useful innovation would be to develop a Public Realm Plan, which would be a strategy containing the priorities and principles for the role public space would have in the life of the city, and how it will be integrated into planning
• cycling should be encouraged around town centres as much as possible e.g. New Lynn, Orewa. Copenhagen has a system of free public bicycles that is heavily used. This, along with their cycling infrastructure, has led to a travel to work mode split of 40% cycling, 25% cars, 30% walking, 5% other
• attention to climactic conditions in the design of public space important e.g. avoiding wind tunnels, maximising sunshine
• achieving safety at night is important. This can be achieved by such things as lighting, encouraging the use of public space at night, and by having the surrounding buildings looking onto, rather than away from, the public space
• small scale urban design should be integrated with the big picture - how the whole city will work
• big story = the entire urban area and its efficiency, etc; Medium story = connections between buildings, linking buses with retail areas, etc; Small story = e.g. how squares and courtyards are organised
• public space should be designed to facilitate people meeting each other, not staying apart. Meeting each other is what people want to do
• "ask not what the city can do for your building, but what your building can do for the city"
• it is not a law of nature that cars should be given first priority in the design of our cities. Initially, it is a change of mindset in how we approach the problem e.g. corner bollards to prevent pedestrians from crossing road at corner and having to step down on to the road level and then up again on the other side is 1960s traffic engineering think
• it is essential to obtain accurate and detailed data about how an area is being used, so that benefits/costs of changes can be quantified and defended against those who feel the changes have been detrimental e.g. pedestrian counts
• we should treat pedestrian movements in the same way and with the same priority as traffic engineers treat traffic counts
• 2-way streets better than 1-way streets for slowing traffic down. Speeding traffic up e.g. through town centres, should not necessarily be an objective
• the distance people are prepared to walk is relative to the quality of the route. People often complain about the distance they have to walk to traverse a town centre, but many people walk further from a carpark to a shopping centre than in they do in town centres
• the sign culture e.g. do this, do that, don't go here, needs to be controlled, co-ordinated and made positive rather than negative. Cities have become full of signs that slow down the senses
• having people live in city centres are important for their safety
• "if the edge of a place never becomes lively, the place will never become lively" e.g. city squares need shops and other uses opening on to them. "People move in the middle, and stay in the edge"
• plan for the city as you plan for a party
• many great cities have distinct policies that they will encourage walking as much as possible i.e. they explicitly raise walking as an objective of what they are trying to achieve e.g. Melbourne. In New Zealand however, pedestrians giving way to cars is embedded in law e.g. road code
• in Copenhagen, it was once found that 70% of cars in the city centre were there because they were looking for a carpark that wasn't there
• canopies in front of shops are important to provide protection for pedestrians
• we need to have political leaders who have the courage to go beyond the easy. Leadership is very important
• one of Auckland's challenges is developing an imperative to change
• the town centre should be the centre of the people in its catchment's lives
• "get the cars out of the city, and the people out of the cars"
• an urban fence is an essential strategy for encouraging walking and cycling
• the most important thing about a city is not the buildings but the spaces between the buildings
• parks can be too big. A smaller, more city park can be used more actively
• the human body is a guide to good city design: how fast we move, where we look, our preference to be close to other people
• the 5km/h scale is different from the 60km/h scale - our designers constantly confuse the scales and expect pedestrians to walk in areas designed for 60km/h
• humans need something new to look at every 4-5 seconds. This is why the 5km/h scale is so important.

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Follow up

1. The ARC is coordinating the sale and distribution of Jan's books, which are unavailable in New Zealand. The ARC is also distributing a video of Jan's work made by Danish Television
2. A number of the councils Jan visited and spoke with are discussing the possibility of asking Jan or one of his colleagues to return to do further work on local projects
3. The suggestion was raised a number of times during the visit by a range of people that Jan's firm should be asked to conduct a thorough review of Auckland's urban design ‘situation', and recommend an action plan to improve it dramatically, similar to what Jan did for Melbourne in 1994 with dramatic results
4. A number of individuals who heard Jan speak expressed their intention to use his visit as a catalyst for privately encouraging the Auckland region's civic leaders to take good urban design seriously and do more to encourage it.

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Resources

• A video of Jan's work made by Danish Television is available from the Auckland Regional Council. Email David Lindsey.
• Some useful PDF files are available here:
• Presentation - Public spaces for a changing society - part one by Jan Gehl (2.3 MB PDF)
• Presentation - Public spaces for a changing society - part two by Jan Gehl (2.8 MB PDF)
• Presentation - Public spaces for a changing society - part three by Jan Gehl (3.7 MB PDF)
• Jan's books include the following, and may be available from the ARC depending upon stocks:
• New City Life New City Life describes the changes in City Life of the past 50 years. Where City Life earlier was predominantly filled by people busy with vital pursuits, we nowadays see a City Life dominated by activities of the leisure-time society, posing new challenges to public spaces. A handbook on how to create human qualities in the city.
• New City Spaces This book presents a overview of the development in the use and planning of public spaces, and offers a detailed description of 9 cities and 39 selected public space projects from all parts of the World. The book is extensively illustrated by drawings, plans and photographs.
• Public Spaces Public Life The book describes the remarkable qualitative improvements which have taken place in central Copenhagen over the past 34 years, and how they have been accomplished. It presents a method of assessing urban quality and gives a thorough insight into how people use urban spaces.
• Life Between Buildings This book is the best source for understanding how people use public spaces in our cities. Published in many languages since 1971, it continues to be the undisputed basic introduction to the interplay between public space design and social life. Now available in its sixth English language edition.

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Jan Gehl's Biography

JAN GEHL - Born 1936. Architect, Professor of Urban Design, Director of Centre for Public Space Researches at the School of Architec­ture, the Royal Danish Academy of Fine Arts in Copenhagen.

Partner GEHL Architects ApS - Urban Quality Consultants, Copenhagen.

International teaching includes universities in Edinburgh, Toronto, Calgary, Melbourne, Perth, Berkeley, San José, Oslo, Dresden, Wroclaw, Hanover, Guadalajara, Vilnius, Cape Town and Costa Rica, and consultancy compromises cities in Europe, North America, Australia, Middle East and the Far East.

Previous publications include "Life Between Buildings - Using Public Space" published in 12 languages, "Public Spaces Public Life, Copenhagen 1996", winner of the Edra/PLACES Research award, USA, 1999 and "New City Spaces", Architec­tural Press, Copenhagen 2001.

Jan Gehl has been awarded the Sir Patrick Abercrombie prize for exemplary contributions to town planning by the International Union of Architects as well as an honorary doctorate from Heriot-Watt University in Edinburgh.

You can download a comprehensive copy of Jan Gehl's biography here -

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GEHL ARCHITECTS - is a consulting firm in the field of architecture, urban design and urban planning offering expertise concerning the human dimension in city and site planning. The character and vitality of public spaces are seen as an important key to urban quality.

The firm's focus is on people and ensuring quality public space for people to enjoy. Accordingly, planning and design solutions are based on extensive research on how people use public space and experience urban quality throughout the world. Their work is based on the close relationship between well-functioning, well-designed and lively public spaces and people's perception of quality in cities. By allowing the aspirations for public life to drive the design process, the public realm can serve as a place for all, while embracing the unique qualities and amenities of the specific urban context.

GEHL Architects work in Europe, the United Kingdom, the Middle East, Africa, New Zealand, and Australia acting as a consultant for local governments and private developers. Services provided by GEHL Architects vary from improvement of existing public spaces and urban regeneration of entire city centers to consulting in relation to the master planning of new mixed-use development, city districts and housing areas as well as with the master plan framework of new city areas. By focusing on improving the environment for pedestrians, cyclists, and other forms of alternative transport, GEHL Architects have been instrumental in promoting sustainable cities.

Vision

• To create lively, diverse, and safe cities and neighbourhoods
• To improve people's lives - rather than focusing on design aesthetics alone
• To consider, develop, and accentuate amenities

To achieve the above while considering and accounting for climatic and environmental concerns, ensuring sustainability in all aspects:

• social
• physical
• mental
• environmental
• economical