Planning cities for people, the Gehl approach (Denmark Day 5)
We started the day with a brief lecture at Gehl Architecture's Copenhagen office. I took a route along the lakes to get there--a pleasant experience even if it added a minute or two. Once we all gathered, Andreas Røhl asked us what surprised us the most about Copenhagen. Folks' responses varied from how easy it was to get around to more cars in the city center than we anticipated. Andreas then gave us a brief overview of how Gehl came to his approach and how that approach became the basis of an urban consulting group's concepts and strategies. Gehl himself trained as an architect, but his wife trained as a psychologist who asked him, "Why aren't you interested in people?" So, he started paying attention to people. Turns out, people make or break cities, so not a bad idea overall. After watching how people spend life between buildings,* aka research, Gehl figured out what makes for good mobility and public space. First, mobility, aka moving across...