A human-scale city

American Society of Landscape Architects
www.asla.org 

INTERVIEW WITH JAN GEHL   

You talk about how important it is to design for the human dimension or scale (not the building scale) and how critical our senses are in experiencing cities. What is the human scale? How can landscape architects make sure they're incorporating this approach into their work?

Ah, that's easy because I use about 30 or 40 pages in my book to painstakingly detail what human scale is and how you can find out about it. It is of course based on Homo sapiens, the speed with which we move, the way we move, how our limbs are organized, how our movement system, how our senses are geared to our being a walking animal, and are geared to see everything horizontally. We see everything horizontally but we see very little up and a little bit more down. We can see when we communicate with people, we have a very, very precise system. If it's intimate, we are at a close distance. If I was to tell you about a big sad story I just had with one of my grandchildren, I would lean over and it would be very personal. If it's sort of more common, we have the public, the social distance where we yak, yak, yak, and do interviews on landscape architecture. Then we have the public distance which is the distance between the priest and his congregation, teacher, pupil, whatever. We have a number of distances which are part of our instincts and upbringing.

A city's edge, particularly the lower floors of a building, has a decisive influence on life in the city space. What's the difference between hard and soft edges? Why are soft edges so important?The hard edges are easy to define. If you have a blank wall or just glass, maybe black glass or whatever, you can, as a human being, do nothing and there's no interest. The words "soft edge" mean a façade where a lot of things happen. It could be many doors, niches, or the vegetable seller putting out his tomatoes on the street. Soft edges could be the front yard where the kids are playing and grandma is sitting knitting just behind the hedge. We have found, of course, the ground floor is where the communication between building inside and outside occurs. That's what you see. So if the ground floor is rich, the city is rich and it doesn't matter what you do further up. Ralph Erskine said always make the ground floor very rich, use all the money on the ground floor, it doesn't matter what's further up because nobody sees that. 

Note from USC:  I would agree with everything Mr. Ghel says, with the caveat that it does not apply to suburbs as well as to large cities.  I would never advocate removing automobiles from Town Centers or Main Streets that are the lifeblood of a small town.  Without adequate parking and ease of travel into and through shopping districts, people will go elsewhere to shop, and that would kill the concept of the lively town that the writer describes.  Small towns and shopping areas must be able to accommodate all customers.  Unless and until we have busses going deep into the neighborhoods on a frequent basis, cars are and will be a fact of life in Lake Oswego.  I only hope that the Central Planners don't mess things up for the town before it's too late.  

Buildings that work at the intimate, human scale that have soft edges, spaces that are broken up and are inviting to people, and relating to the environment at the personal scale... Sounds like what is wanted for the Wizer Block.  

After all, it's out town.