Gehl, Jan
From CollabLandWiki
Life Between Buildings
by Jan Gehl
Summarized by Chidozie Ehiemere, Josh Kary, Brent Dusek, and Zach Pleiss
Three Types of Outdoor Activities
Necessary Activities
Activites that were required to carried out despite physical or social hinderances. Individuals involved in activities had no say whether or not to carry out these activities. These include: Going to school/woork, shopping, waiting for a bus, etc.
Optional Activities
These are activities that are only carried out by wish. They are not activities forced to carry out. Here physical conditions play a major role in determining whether such activites could be carried out or not. Some of these activities include: Talking a walk, standing and enjoying life, sitting, and sunbathing.
Social Activities
These are activities that depend soley on the presence of others in public spaces. They are too an extent affected by physical conditions. They include: Children at play, greetings and conversations, passive contact, seeing and hearing people.
The level of these activites is greatly accefted by the quality of Phyisical Environment. For example of the amount of optional activite is by far greater when the physical environment is good opposed to poor. This can be related to the weather. If it is hot outside and the weather is nice people are more likely to be outside on the lake, going for a walk or riding bike oppsed to in the winter when their outdoor activites are limited to cold and snow.
Life Between Buildings
The Need for Contact
Opportunities for meetings and daily activities in the public spaces of a city or residential area enable on to be among, to see, and hear others, to experience other people functioning in various situations. "See and hear" contacts must be considered in relation to other forms of contact and social activities.
Contact Intensity
Opporotunities related merely being able to meet, see and hear others include:
- contact at a modest level
- a possible starting point for contact at other levels
- a possiblity for maintaining already established contacts
- a source of information about the social world outside
- a source of inspirtation, an offer of stimulating experience
A Form of Contact
Life between buildings provides the opportunity to be with others in a relaxed and undemanding way. Being among others, seeing and hearing others, receiving impulses from others, imply positive experiences, alternatives to being alone. One is not necessarily with a specific person but more so with others. Some examples are:
- Taking occasional walks, perhaps making detours along the way to simply be amongst people.
- Taking long bus rides as the older population tends to do in large cities.
- Daily shopping, although this is more practical to do once a week.
- Even looking outside the window if there is something to look at.
A Possible Access to Contact at Other Levels
Contacts that develop spontaneously in connection of being where there are others are usually very momentary. Examples are:
- A short exchange of words
- Chatting with a child in a bus
- Watching somebody working
- Asking few questions
Uncomplicated Opportunity to Maintain Already Established Contacts
The possibility of meeting neighbors and co-workers often in connection with daily comings and goings implies a valuable opportunity to establish and later maintain acquaintances in a relaxed and undemanding way. Social events can evolve spontaneously. Situations are allowed to develop. Visits and gatherings can be arranged on short notice, when the mood dictates. With frequent meetings, friendships and the contact network are maintained in a far simpler and less demanding way than if friendship must be kept up by telephone or by invitation.
Information About the Social Environment
We discover how others work, behave, and dress, and we obtain knowledge about the people we work with, live with, and so forth. Through this, we establish a confidential relationship with the world around us. A person we have often met on the street becomes a person we "know."
A Source of Inspiration
The opportunity to see and hear other people can also provide ideas and inspiration for action. We are inspired by seeing others in action.
A Uniquely Stimulating Experience
Experiencing other people represents a particularly colorful and attractive opportunity for stimulation. No moment is like the previous or the following when people circulate among people. The number of new situations and new stimuli is limitless. Living cities, ones in which people can interact with one another, are always stimulation because they are rich in experiences.
Activity as Attraction
- Wherever there are people - in buildings, in neighborhoods, in city centers, in college campuses, in other recreational areas, and so on - it is generally true that people and human activities attract other people. People are attracted to other people. When activities are in progress, new activities become present.
- In a home, we see that children tend to want to be around the adults or other children.
- For adults, if they are given a choice between walking in a deserted street, or a lively street, they tend to choose the lively street.
"People come where people are"
-Scandinavian proverb
Activities and Play Habits
- Childrens play habits in residential areas are usually where the most activity is happening, or where to best chance of activity is going to be.
- Both areas with single-family homes and apartment complexes, children tend to play more in the streets, parking areas, and near entrances of dwellings than areas that were designed for that purpose.
Activities and Seating Preferences
- Benches that give a good view of surrounding activities are used more than benches with less or no view of other people.
Attractions on a Pedestrian Street
- The opportunity to see, hear, and meet others can also be shown to be one of the most important attractions.
- Pedestrians tend to stop to look at places on a street because they have a direct relationship to other people and to the surrounding environment.
