Jan Gehl – författare

For more than forty years Jan Gehl has helped to transform urban environments around the world based on his research into the ways people actually use - or could use - the spaces where they live and work. In this revolutionary book, Gehl presents his latest work creating (or recreating) cityscapes on a human scale. He clearly explains the methods and tools he uses to reconfigure unworkable cityscapes into the landscapes he believes they should be: cities for people. Taking into account changing demographics and changing lifestyles, Gehl emphasizes four human issues that he sees as essential to successful city planning. He explains how to develop cities that are lively, safe, sustainable, and healthy. Focusing on these issues leads Gehl to think of even the largest city on a very small scale. For Gehl, the urban landscape must be considered through the five human senses and experienced at the speed of walking rather than at the speed of riding in a car or bus or train. This small-scale view, he argues, is too frequently neglected in contemporary projects. In a final chapter, Gehl makes a plea for city planning on a human scale in the fast-growing cities of developing countries.A 'Toolbox', presenting key principles, overviews of methods, and keyword lists, concludes the book. The book is extensively illustrated with over 700 photos and drawings of examples from Gehl's work around the globe.

How do we accommodate a growing urban population in a way that is sustainable, equitable, and inviting? This question is becoming increasingly urgent as we face diminishing fossil-fuel resources and the effects of a changing climate while global cities continue to compete to be the most vibrant centres of culture, knowledge, and finance. Jan Gehl has been examining this question since the 1960s, when few urban designers or planners were thinking about designing cities for people. But given the unpredictable, complex and ephemeral nature of life in cities, how can we best design public infrastructure - vital to cities for getting for place to place, or staying in place - for human use? Studying city life and understanding the factors that encourage or discourage use is the key to designing inviting public space. In How to Study Public Life Jan Gehl and Birgitte Svarre draw from their combined experience of over 50 years to provide a history of public-life study as well as methods and tools necessary to recapture city life as an important planning dimension.This type of systematic study began in earnest in the 1960s, when several researchers and journalists on different continents criticized urban planning for having forgotten life in the city. City life studies provide knowledge about human behaviour in the built environment in an attempt to put it on an equal footing with knowledge about urban elements such as buildings and transport systems. Studies can be used as input in the decision-making process, as part of overall planning, or in designing individual projects such as streets, squares or parks. The original goal is still the goal today: to recapture city life as an important planning dimension. Anyone interested in improving city life will find inspiration, tools, and examples in this invaluable guide.

Der dänische Architekt Jan Gehl, einer der weltweit wohl bekanntesten Stadtplaner, erläutert in seinem Buch Leben zwischen Häusern die fundamentale Bedeutung sensibler Raumplanung für ein gutes Zusammenleben in unseren Städten. Dabei nennt Jan Gehl entscheidende Eckpfeiler für die Verbesserung der Lebensqualität. Im Objektiv seiner Betrachtungen steht der Mensch, dessen grundlegende Bedürfnisse die Gestaltung öffentlicher Räume bestimmen sollten. Und im Gegensatz zur Architektur, die ebenso wie unser Leben wechselnden Moden und Strömungen unterliegt, bleiben diese Kriterien überraschend konstant. Das Buch, vor über 40 Jahren erstmalig in Dänisch erschienen und mittlerweile in mehr als 50 Sprachen übersetzt, hat nichts von seiner Aktualität verloren. Vielmehr liefert es nach wie vor grundlegende wie überraschende Vorschläge für eine entscheidende Verbesserung der Lebensqualität in unserer Welt. Hiermit erscheint dieser Klassiker der Stadtplanung zum ersten Mal in deutscher Sprache.

For more than 40 years, the architect and city planner Jan Gehl has been involved in redesigning or creating new designs for squares, streets, even entire city districts, for the benefit of the residents. He bases himself on insights that he has gained through many years of studying city situations in various countries. By observing megacities in detail himself, Gehl develops methods and strategies for bringing significant positive change to dysfunctional and inhospitable urban landscapes. This takes account of demographic developments, changing lifestyles, and design processes. The most important principle behind Jan Gehl’s urban planning on a human scale is that the urban space has to be experienced at the speed of a pedestrian, instead of from a vehicle. This is the only way to succeed in making both traditional metropolises and rapidly growing cities in developing and emerging countries into cities for people.The book presents Jan Gehl’s work in the area of new buildings, as well as the redesign of urban spaces and streets. Presentations of his planning models through text and images, as well as of his planning principles and methods, illuminate how vibrant, safe, sustainable, and healthy cities can be created in future.

Do you remember the series of lectures and teachers from your university days? No? Camilla van Deurs does. She particularly remembers one teacher and professor, Jan Gehl, not only for his knowledge but also for his ability to communicate it.Jan Gehl presented the key points of his research through anecdotes and repeated them until they became ingrained. From teacher to student. From one generation of architects and urban planners to the next.Die gute Stadt is a collection of 24 short stories in which Gehl's research work is translated into easy-to-understand reflections on city life. Like the staircase – an architecturally designed component, but one that quickly becomes an accumulation of newspapers and shopping bags. About the distinction between architecture and urban planning on the drawing board and the actual, lived city. About small spaces and big experiences. Personal stories of Danish world-renowned city planner Jan GehlCollected with Camilla van Deurs, Copenhavens City ArchitectEasy access to Jan Gehls work with fundamental insights into city development worldwide