Jan Gehl is a world renowned architect of liveable (and loveable!) urban space. He spoke to the ACT Legislative Assembly in early February.
The YouTube videos of his talks are available here.
An interesting brief synopsis on his history and ideas is written in The Guardian
A couple of poignant quotes from that article resonate with the LCA…
“… a new frontier in the debate is urban densification – but this should not, in Gehl’s view, mean high rises: “We should make cities six to seven storeys high, like they did in Paris in the good old days.”…”
“…it means balancing urban density with green space – and densifying transport hubs, something she (Helle Søholt) is thinking about a lot at the moment: “Rather than densify or expand our communities, even building on green fields, it’s really important that we densify our cities around the core infrastructure….”
Jans’ ideas are transformative in his principles of design which enhance urban liveability. His studies and data collection on the way people interact within their space was groundbreaking at the time, way back in the 1960’s.
Despite what we might think (or do not, on the subconscious level), there is a measurable psychological and physical manifestation in how we react to our built environment.
Interesting stuff, Google him up.
We hope the ACT Government takes his ideas and principles and embeds them so Canberra further enhances it’s rightful place as one of the worlds most liveable cities.
