Yasmin Ali

Continental Perspectives: Jan Gehl

Jan Gehl is an esteemed and experienced architect & urbanist from Copenhagen. He is also an accomplished author and scholar. This talk  coincides with the recent release of his latest book 'Cities for People' (Island Press, November 2010), which is available from RIAS. 'Cities for People' recently won the EDRA Book Award for Places in June of this year.

Gehl's work focuses on acknowledging role of people as instrumental in designing user-friendly places. This is in-part, satisfied by community consultation and engagement. However, as Gehl highlights, there remains at a fundamental level the need to account for human qualities as key design drivers:  for example, through the consideration of human scale, ergonomics and desire lines, to name but a few.

Gehl's most famous text 'Life Between Buildings' (1987) has been reproduced in over twenty languages worldwide, including unofficial translations such as Farsi in Iran. To this end, Gehl simply remarks he is not concerned regards royalties; more so that his work furthers sustainable and sensitive urban development.

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