Last month, Danish Architect Jan Gehl turned 80 years old. His birthday also marked 50 years since he commenced his seminal investigations into how people use cities, with his work inspiring countless planners, urban designers and architects across the world.
Gehl has long advocated for a people-focused approach to urban planning. His view being that cities should be crafted and built to meet the needs of the people on the ground, not the aesthetic ambitions of architects and planners that was commonplace in the latter half of the 20th century.
Underpinning many of his ideas is the encouragement of more walking and cycling and restricting the movement of cars. He often states that the client of an urban planner is a slow moving 5km/h walking creature (i.e. humans).
Even as cities have grown and will continue to grow in their size and scale, Gehl is quick to remind us that humans are still the same size and move at the same speed. When it comes to designing public space for people, he is an advocate for small is beautiful, slow is beautiful and low is beautiful.
However, Gehl isn’t anti tall buildings. He has long acted as an advisor to the city of New York, a city synonymous with skyscrapers. Instead, his focus is on not on how tall a building is, but how it interacts with its site and its surroundings. He is often quoted saying that design should consider “first life, then spaces, then buildings”.
Gehl’s theories stemmed from his marriage to a psychologist and through his initial studies of how people use traditional squares and piazzas in Italy during the 1960s. This made Gehl see the link between well-designed public areas and the happiness of people in a time where cities, criss-crossed by highways, were being designed from above looking down.
Gehl’s work was initially dismissed by his colleagues, however, as time has gone on his comments have been taken on board by countless cities across the world.
Gehl’s sphere of influence can be seen in London today. In 2004, Gehl and his practice prepared the report ‘Towards a Fine City for People’ for London. In his report, Gehl set out a number of easy wins and long term targets to improve the public space throughout the central London. Ideas included the improvement of pedestrian infrastructure in and around Piccadilly Circus (the results of which we can see today), the introduction of better cyclist infrastructure and through a number of gradual improvements to the street environment for pedestrians throughout Central London. This formed part of a commitment to make London a fine city for people by 2015.
Not all of his ideas have been taken on board here in London. Gehl cites one of his biggest disappointments in London as the decision to not pedestrianise Oxford Street and introduce a tram along the route. However, we are now set to see this happen (minus the tram) by 2020.
In a recent short mini-documentary released to celebrate his 50 years of practice, Gehl reflected on his career and looked ahead to 2050.
Gehl’s advice to planners is that we should strive to achieve good outcomes for the city so that its residents can be assured that their quality of life will be a little bit better as each day passes.
This is set to become increasingly important as the 75% of the world’s population is predicted to live in cities by 2050. This will require us to build as much urban fabric between now and then as we have done in human history.
With London set to be one the world’s global cities that will continue to grow and transform, we should remind ourselves of Gehl’s principles and place people at heart of planning for London’s future.