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MergeTransport planning and Design of Cities:Transurban Planning

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November 23, 2011
Mobility
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The Swedish Transport Administration invited Helle Søholt to contribute as Key Note speaker and to take part in the panel discussion at the seminar Think Future, Strategies for the transport-system of tomorrow, in Stockholm on the 8th of November.

The Swedish Transport Minister Catharina Elmsäter- Svärd opened the seminar, but with no references to the importance of urban areas, cities, towns and villages not to say the people using daily transport systems.

This was indeed the focus of Helle’s contribution to the future thinking of transport. The need to address a micro level of planning and not just the traditional macro level. The micro level where we understand the behavior of people and make transport networks that multiplies choice and quality of life for the individual. Cities that are walkable, bikeable and have a well developed public transport system are both more sustainable and much more lively and safe as a consequence of the people moving at eyelevel in the streets.

The Seminar aimed at providing an arena for dialogue on issues of strategic and long-term importance related to the further use and development of the Swedish transport system. One of several important policy tools to promote sustainable economic growth, at a time when global structural change of demography, economy and trade increases. The necessity of serious considerations to energy and climate change constraints where considered in the seminar.

Trafikverket is a new administration, comprising all modes of transport, and with the brave ambition of gaining a wider identity as not only contributing to the building of the society but a pro-active ”society developer”.

As the first national authority merging transport silos, we hope at Gehl Architects to see a more integrated thinking and approach also to city building and the need of people.

The discussions at the seminar were to serve as strategic input to the national transport policy-making process and influence future strategies and action plans in the National Assembly, the Ministries and the Administrations.

We are looking forward to see the results of integrated thinking in transport solutions contributing to improve cities for people in Sweden.

Thanks to an unusual fun day of transport discussions in Stockholm on old and new paradigms.

Helle Søholt was Key Note speaker at Think Future, Strategies for the transport-system of tomorrow, in Stockholm.

The following panel discussion at the seminar.

Quality public space as a basic human right

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April 19, 2011
News, Uncategorized
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On April 12th, the  UN- Habitat released a draft resolution from the Twenty-third session held in Nairobi, that reaffirms the importance of public space and its impact on quality of life in cities. The draft resolution issued by the Governing Council of the United Nations Human Settlements Programme  is entitled Sustainable urban development: The right and access to the city reflected in quality urban public spaces.

For many years the term sustainable urban development has been overly used yet narrowly defined.  This resolution which recognizes that “persons have the right to find in the city the necessary conditions for their political, economic, cultural, social, and ecological realization” is an important step toward addressing sustainable urban development beyond  Co2 emission reductions alone to one that promotes quality of life as well.

Read the draft resolution here

From everyday routines, to daily and weekly occasions, to the exceptional event – quality public spaces that are safe and inviting shape life in the city.

An average day in Times Square

Weekend evening dancing in Chongqing, China

Watching the 2010 World Cup in Rio de Janeiro


 

Gehl Architects and UN Global Compact

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February 18, 2011
Cities, News
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Gehl Architects have handed in our first Communication of Progress (COP) for the UN Global Compact initiative.

Launched in July 2000, the United Nations (UN) Global Compact is both a policy platform and a practical framework for companies that are committed to sustainability and responsible business practices.

Gehl Architects joined the UN Global Compact in 2008.

Read about our first COP on DAC.dk – The Danish Architecture Centre (in Danish only).

Jan Gehl speaking in London

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January 21, 2011
Cities, Presentations
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Professor Jan Gehl at The Economists conference 'Creating tomorrows liveable cities' in London earlier this week.

Earlier this week, professor Jan Gehl was giving the closing keynote at The Economists conference in London, Creating tomorrow’s liveable cities. View the full programme and the other speakers at the conference here.

Well-being, community cohesion and a thriving local economy are now high on the agenda for today’s citizens. Intelligent policies and design for urban areas can provide answers, in one way or another, to all of these concerns and more; while stimulating local economies and creating jobs becomes more important than ever against a background of budgetary constraints and slower economic growth. A new government in the UK and a new austerity budget will dictate the climate in which urban planning and regeneration policies are formed but, as local governments begin to take this into account, what will tomorrow’s priorities for urban living be?

Watch Jan Gehls presentation here.

How can we take this forward?

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August 23, 2010
Cities, Cycling, Mobility, Presentations, Public Realm
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Street scene, Chennai

The spirit of ’Let’s do it’ emanates from all the decisionmakers, Jeff Risom and I have met and made presentations to during our 10 day long trip to India.

Beforehand I had been told by my good Indian friend, architect Sanjay Prakash, that Indian city and government officials were hard to impress. And certainly Mr. Asheesh Sharma, the municipal commissioner (IAS) of the Pimpri Chinchwad Municipal Corporation, Maharashtra,  seemed less than impressed during my whole presentation on 21st century housing based on the best practice case of Bo01 in Malmö. And yet, his first reaction afterwards were the words: “How can we take this forward?”

Left to right: Henning Thomsen, Gehl Architects, mayor of Chennai M. Subramanian, Jeff Risom, Gehl Architects, and Rajesh Lakhoni, Chennai City Corporation Commissioner

Jeff and I receiving gifts from Chennai mayor Subramanian

The same happened in Chennai (former Madras) some days earlier. Initiated with the playing of the Tamil Nadu state anthem, Jeff and I gave a presentation on Copenhagen cycling best practice to the mayor of this 8 million people city, Mr. M. Subramanian, the City Corporation Commissioner, Mr. Rajesh Lakhoni, and a host of city councillors. After our presentation the very lively and empathic mayor gave a talk (in tamil) about his reflections on cycling in Chennai and referring to his own trips to Europe, where he had had the opportunity first hand to witness the potential of cycling in cities, he boldly stated, that Chennai would have its first dedicated cycle tracks in nothing less than 20 days.

Audience at the Gehl Architects lecture at Anna University, School of Architecture and Planning, which included professor Dinesh Mohan from the Indian Institute of Technology in Delhi as well as professor and dean of the Department of Architecture, Anna University, Dr. Suresh Kuppuswamy.

Check out some of the news clips on Gehl Architects visit to Chennai:

The Hindu

New India Press

The Times of India

ITDP India staff working in their office in Pimpri

Gehl Architects are visiting India on request of the Institute for Transport and Development Policy (ITDP). In the case of Chennai also Chennai City Connect, a Chennai based non-profit organization, have been responsible for the invitation and for the many presentations and meetings, we have been part of while in Chennai.

See below a list of the activities we have been performing since entering India on the 17th august:

17th august: Meeting with professor Dinesh Mohan and M. Muthaia on Chennai history and urban development in India

17th august: Lecture at Anna University, School of Architecture and Planning

18th august: Presentation to the Tamil Nadu Urban Development Foundation (TNUDF)

19th august: Presentation to the Chennai Metro Rail Limited

20th august: Lecture for the Mayor M. Subramanian, the City Corporation Commissioner, Mr. Rajesh Lakhoni, and city councillors

20th august: Presentation to the Chief Secretary, Tamil Nadu State, Mr. K. Sripathy

20th august: Lecture for Executive Committee members of Chennai City Connect and Marg representatives at the Sheraton, sponsored by Marg Limited

21st august: Workshop with Tamil Nadu Urban Development Foundation (TNUDF) and Jones Lang LaSalle on pedestrianisation of T. Nagar

23rd august: Presentation to the Chief Commissioner Asheesh Sharma, of the Pimpri Chinchwad Municipal Corporation (PCMC), Maharashtra and the CEO Suhas Diwase, Pimpri Chinchwad New Town Development Authority (PCNTDA) and other city officials

23rd august: Lecture to ITDP staff at local office in Pimpri

24th august: Two presentations at seminar with delegates from Pimpri Chinchwad Municipal Corporation (PCMC), Pimpri Chinchwad New Town Development Authority (PCNTDA), builders, architects and planners

Street in the main shopping area of Chennai, T. Nagar, after rainfall.

The reception of the thoughts and practices we have shown in all of these lectures and presentations has been very welcoming. The notion of people-friendly development and the need for the introduction of new planning principles to succeed the traditional modernistic planning principles is warmly welcomed by the Indians.

At the same time we on our side have to acknowledge that the urban context, societal circumstances and even the economic structures are indeed very different from the context, circumstances and structures, we rely on when dealing with cities in both Denmark, Europe and most anywhere else. India seems to be a case of its own.

Street scene, Chennai

The little we have seen granted, we still are left with an impression of a country and of cities where growth is staggering, be it in numbers of people, numbers of vehicles and even kind and type of vehicles, and be it in pressure on the land and on its ressources, and on the structures that try to keep this extraordinary country together.

Slum settlements in front of new housing development in Pimpri

Even understanding the importance and scale of the so-called informal economy is mindblowing to a person coming from the US, as Jeff, and from Denmark, as myself. Poverty, as we have witnessed in slum developments in both Chennai and Pimpri, is evident. The relation of the informal economy and the informal settlements to the larger urban context is, to say the least, complicated. That the lifestyles of some, cannot be maintained without the help of cheap labour supplied by the others, the slumdwellers, is openly accepted. But it is also evidently hard to deal with for planners as well as politicians and city officials when redeveloping existing cities or even planning and building new cities and towns.

Informal economy - street vendors in the main shopping area in Chennai, T. Nagar

Informal economy - hawkers to the left and shops to the right co-existing and both relying on the business that the other brings to a section of the sidewalk

During our visit we have been discussing pedestrianization, improving conditions for cyclists and implementation of better cycling infrastructure as well as raising awareness on cycling as a healthy, sustainable and effective mobility form, and also how to develop people-friendly housing developments for the 21st century.

New urban development around a BRT streetcorridor in Pimpri - these streetcorridors will be between 45 and 75 meters wide!

Recycling garbage forms an integrated part of the informal economy and of the slum settlements

And also during our visit we have been exposed to many issues that seem to be particular for the growing megacities of the developing world, issues that call for their own context-based solutions to be developed and where the example of Copenhagen as a livable city, sometimes falls short of the realities that people are dealing with in a society such as the Indian. Thus even if we think we still have a point in pushing the issue of a more people-friendly planning in a context such as India, we must also make it a point to learn more about the megacity context in order to find ways in which the principles of people-friendly planning become more applicable in for example an Indian context.

Traffic - It is all over the place!!!

That said, I must say that the visit in general and the people in particular have been an extraordinary experience. The entrepreneurial, warm-hearted and extremely humoristic Indians have been a joy to get to know.

A special thanks for organizing the whole trip and for taking such good care of us goes to Shreya Gadepalli and the staff of ITDP India, that we have met, as well as to Raj Cherubal and Balchand Parayath of Chennai City Connect.

Children in the streets of a low-income housing development in Pimpri

Not only the food was hot!

We were kept busy! Jeff adjusting slideshows in the cab between presentations

Cycling in Copenhagen in 1937

By
August 12, 2010
Cycling, Mobility
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Only a few weeks ago, our good friend at Streetfilms, Clarence Eckerson Jr., launched a new film on Streetfilms, highlighting the cycling culture of Copenhagen as it appears to American eyes in 2010.

But already back in 1937 Copenhagen was a bicycling city, and another American traveller and documentarist, James A. Fitzpatrick’s, visited Copenhagen and was awestruck by the cycling culture of the city.

Enjoy his reflections but be a little patient as well. There is both some rather harsh talk about ‘a white race’ as well as a lot of images of Copenhagen as such. But the first few minutes and again the last few minutes of the 9 minute film, shows how cycling was already in 1937 a big thing in Copenhagen.

A big thank you to another friend, Frank Sejersen, for pointing me to the 1937 film.

Keep in mind, though, that almost all of the cycling culture of the 1930′s was lost, in Copenhagen too, during the car-invasion of the 1960′s and early 1970′s, and only through patient and deliberate work has been re-instated and even improved dramatically, within the last decade or two.

Below, as a little aside, a film showing many of the same things, as they are shown to the world today. Enjoy in particular the reference to the Long John, the transport cycle of the 1930′s, and the new and updated version of the same bike anno 2010.

A critical look at the compact city model

By
August 11, 2010
Research
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In the UK, the ‘compact city’ model for urban development has heavily influenced Urban Renaissance planning policy of the last ten years. This  ideal has been greatly simplified and selectively implemented throughout London.

In their paper for the recent 2nd Annual International Conference on Sustainable Architecture and Urban Development, hosted by The Center for the Study of Architecture in the Arab Region and held in Amman, Jordan, Jeff Risom, of Gehl Architects, Copenhagen, and Maria Sisternas, of MedCities, Barcelona, examines the guiding framework for this form of ‘compact city’ policy and offers a critique of some of the approaches to ’compact cities’, that have been put forward in recent years, and in some cases put forward without much critical distance.

In a follow up interview with Risom and Sisternas, by the German infoportal for sustainable business and policy, Nachhaltigkeit.org, the two authors underline that it is not the fundamental idea of a more compact city, that they criticize, but rather what seems to be an unholy alliance between urbanist, promoting densification, and developers aiming to make a buck on the individual site and failing to respect the larger urban needs and challenges of an area. This alliance, it seems, can lead to catastrophic results that eventually make neighborhoods less livable (and sustainable), rather than more livable (and sustainable), in spite of heavy investments in an area.

Some Urban Renaissance policies are reminiscent of the Garden City model put forth 100 years earlier. Jeff Risom and Maria Sisternas paper and presentation in Amman investigates these “sustainable” policies as they manifest themselves specifically through a proposal for a tall building in the Garden City suburb of Ealing.

"The key components of a mixed-use and integrated urban neighborhood", according to Lord Rogers of Riverside - illustration by Andrew Wright Associates

The analysis leads to a critique of regional policy used to designate the scope and scale of development at the local level as it fails to identify key socio-economic and spatial characteristics that contribute to the phenomenology of each specific location.  This failure stems from an ideology that is largely rooted in convenient but overly simplified notions of what constitutes ‘urban’ and ‘suburban’ areas.

The paper concludes with two bundles of policy and urban design interventions that address the flawed relationship between the regional and the local, identifying new evaluation criteria, while maintaining the strengths of  current policy’s main goals and aspirations.

Speaking about the 2nd Annual International Conference on Sustainable Architecture and Urban Development, Jeff Risom said that,

“In many ways the conference expanded the traditional sustainability debate to include issues of public/private space in predominately muslim portions of North Africa (Sudan and Libya), environmentally sustainable housing in Turkey, and the economic, social, and environmental impact on the sprawling refugee neighborhoods in Amman.  This exposure was both a breath of fresh air and at the same time disheartening as it emphasized that several of the issues we tackle in high-income western cities simply aren’t relevant to a vast percentage of the world’s population.  In addition to papers regarding technical design solutions to improve mobility and reduce energy consumption of individual buildings and city districts, conference presentations highlighted fundamental obstacles such as illiteracy, poor access to information, lack of democratic transparency and an abundance of corruption that must be addressed in conjunction with good design to achieve truly sustainable development.  This notion of removing such obstacles to achieving quality of life as well as designing contextually sensitive interventions will only become increasingly important as we do more work in lower-income countries and in non-western cultures.”

Read the full interview with Jeff Risom and Maria Sisternas in Nachhaltigkeit.org here (in German only).

Check out Risom and Sisternas presentation for the 2nd Annual International Conference on Sustainable Architecture and Urban Development, held in Amman, Jordan, here:

Jeff Risom is MSc of City Design and Social Science, LSE, and is an associate at Gehl Architects in Copenhagen.

Maria Sisternas is MSc of City Design and Social Science, LSE, and works as Urban Development Project Manager at MedCities, Barcelona, a collaboration of Mediterranean cities formed in 1991.

Senior Consultant and Culture & Communications Manager Henning Thomsen from Gehl Architects was on the Scientific Committee for the conference.

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