In Search of the Human Scale | Jan Gehl | TEDxKEA

For the past 50 years, urban planners have gone out of their way to build grandiose cities, with large open spaces to accommodate traffic and awe-inspiring views to impress the inhabitants.
Inadvertently, these cities that look inspiring from the window of an airplane or a car, offer very little to the pedestrian. Public spaces become uninviting and uninspiring, discouraging people from physical activities or from merely enjoying their surroundings.
With obesity and other lifestyle-associated problems on the rise, it is more important than ever to build cities for people. Cities that move at 5km/h.
Dubbed “the last living worldwide renowned guru in urbanism” legendary architect Jan Gehl has been rebuilding cities to accommodate the needs of modern societies throughout half a century. He has been involved in rebuilding most large cities imaginable, from Sao Paolo to New York, to Copenhagen, to Moscow, to Singapore.
This talk was given at a TEDx event using the TED conference format but independently organized by a local community. Learn more at ted.com/tedx

[@sbjctvdesign8419]

This is making me change the way I think about designing buildings as well. Gotta stop looking at them from above

[@DarkKittycat]

i love this man and everything he researched

[@francoreque2305]

1:00 BIOGRAFIA 5:10 ESCALA HUMANA 7:58 GOING MODERN 8:43 SITE PLAN SCALE 9:21 PEOPLE SCALE 9:57 BRAZILIA SINDROME 11:20 ONE OF THE MANY UNFORSEEN BYPRODUCTS 12:17 CAR INVASION 13:26 EXTREME SCALE CONFUSION 14:14 MODERNISM 16:14 THE MOST IMPORTANT SCALE 19:01 THINK BIG

[@svennielsen633]

I have read his book "Livet mellem husene" (Life Between the Houses, 2 edition, 1980). It is unfortunate that he is no longer able to communicate his message, so let us repeat some of the main points: Activities in the city can be divided into necessary, voluntary and social activities. We need to go to work or school, shopping, take public transport and so on. These activities will not vary much depending on the urban environment. But voluntary activities like going for a walk, enjoy the weather depends very much on the urban environment. And only where many people are together it can lead to social interactions. And the most interesting for people is always - other people. So, it is better to gather than to scatter. Shop exhibitions do not offer much attention and if there is not even that, it will be a "lost" stretch. It just make distances between interesting areas bigger. In a functional city activities are divided into areas separate from each other. Under such conditions there will not be much social life. People will take the car, and they will feel pressed together in public transport. In an integrated city activities are mixed, so all kind of people and ages are mixed together. Older people will sit on a bench watching people passing, perhaps talking to a friend at the same time. A good open space has sitting possibilities directed against the areas, where people are walking, thus there will be a lot to look on. In areas with high car traffic there will be no communication. In a pedestrian street there will be eye contact and the noise level is so low that you can talk together. Thus it improves social life. Studies have shown that when a shopping street was closed to cars, the amount of pedestrians doubled. Where traffic is low, children can play on the street in safety. Communication across the street becomes possible. Open places should not be to big. The eyes can see only so far. Thus, an open space divided into smaller areas is more interesting. Huge lawns are not as inviting as a forest with its ever changing environment and experiences. High-rise construction is not suitable for the human eye: we tend to look only ahead and down, so nothing above 1st floor has that much of interest. High-rise construction also create shadows, it brings down the cold wind from higher up, and communication between ground level and second floor is next to impossible. These are his points and this is what he was suppose to tell you.

[@bajer111]

Wise man, unfortunately no one listened when Copenhagen was expanded in Nordhavnen and Ørestaden..

[@alexday3142]

I really love his jokes! And I think I definitely have to read a book of his.

[@Notagrapefruit]

A funny man with a lot on his heart. I'll never look at cozy and luvly european cities - or modern concrete-blocks for that matter - in the same light again. Awesome stuff!

[@darkkhof]

Mathias this architect has a very great knowledge and sense of humanity need and deserves a higher respect form other architect as he mentioned a lot of important issues that cities suffering of

[@magdalenaletonjau.2164]

Read his books! I love "Life between buildings"

[@brandonsantoro47]

Why?

[@renzomarsanochumbez3571]

Guel is my hero without doubt. Great man!!!

[@larsc1969]

Such an inspiration fur urban planners! Thank you, Jan Gehl!

[@mips_2023]

Simply exquisite!

[@lamakocaman]

Verry interesting. Thank you for uploading.

[@mathildehof2137]

Großartig!

[@saranbhatia8809]

Great talk!

[@gayathrikumari4058]

so good :D

[@jeroenvandergoot9834]

Essential...

[@davidperez3844]

Está perrona la cotorreada

[@elitzatz]

Excellent lecture!

[@Vitor-ty1hz]

The intro music? thanks :)

[@ellearchitecture]

Great Architect analyses on a funny way

[@markcrepe8433]

Does anyone know if they Mayor of Bogota he is quoting is Enrique Pena Sola? I am having a hard time finding the actual quote to site for a paper I'm working on...any help would be greatly appreciated. Thank you!

[@camilosanchez9649]

Yes, yes he is. Greetings from Bogotá

[@saravalderrama9992]

was enrique or gustavo petro?

[@adamsayash]

Danish sense of humour

[@Victor-lf9vb]

is here no way to find the script of this video? if one have me know it, i'll really appreciate it.

[@aaronreynolds5303]

Simply exquisite!

[@audreyli9535]

there is the transcript and the closed captions( the c on the bottom right). If you want it in another language, first click the closed captions, then go to the gear icon right next to it. Click subtitles and below " English auto generated " , you can see auto translate. After clicking auto translate, you can click the language and that's how you translate the language.

[@binyoung2384]

人性化的城市，驻足与流连。

[@emanuelfrediani3708]

Estaria bueno tenerlo con subtítulos en español. Seria mas inclusivo

[@leandrorolon8732]

una lastima los subtitulos.. :(

[@alex-ns6xi]

You can download the app of TedTalks- there are many talks with spanish subtitles

[@ArnaldoGil]

Brasília Project is not shapped as an eagle. Its shapped as a plane.

[@kadoos182]

... and a plane is shaped like an eagle?

[@ArnaldoGil]

no. its not. theres no Eagles on the concept.

[@ifrazali3052]

Arnaldo Gil planes are based on eagles

[@YouArchTube]

so?

[@vasilkousev3057]

Now there is a guy who doesn't seem to understand the whole point... :D

[@Houry247]

so cute

[@urbanshepherdgroup2418]

The road layout of that Copenhagen area was really bad. It could need some diversity.

[@emre98922]

sa

[@chhussain6393]

I have no more grudge on my teacher; now i understand but she should have enlightened me. so after all she was a lousy teacher

[@DarkKittycat]

k, tell that to her dont complain here

[@jameswagesi1026]

Stop screwing around Bennett let the girl go!

[@leonelprieto5378]

So you got the solution.. go back 100 years? god! every architect presents himself as a messiah! Cities get bigger all the time, the market have very specific demands and if you don't supply exactly that nobody hire you, the places for work are in the big cities, better services, better standard of living, basically peolple will continue to move and make them even bigger, and there is no way that you can build this scale there! this can be nice to dream but its completely out of touch whit the reality of most cities.

[@illustratornamedkasper]

Of course this is a major challenge that we're all facing, especially architects, in terms of accomodating a rising population. This is however not the Jan Gehl's main point. The main point we can take from his lesson, is that well-designed, comfortable and nice urban areas to walk in, to be in, is not achieved through a helicopter-view, but in terms of the eye-level. We have to look for how human bengs use the space and how it affects them. This has to be taken in mind, also when he have to accomodate a large population - without this in mind, why else would we want to increase our population and spent time together in the cities? And in terms of being hired, his company gehlpeople.com/ has been hired from countries all over the world, spaning from Iceland to New Zealand. He is doing a great job and has spent 45+ years on this subject.

[@leonelprieto5378]

iloveGINANDJUICE That's not his point, that's how he try to make the point work or make it sound like common sense, look the examples he five, look the real proposal and you will see. By the way I don't care how much people hire him, don't even care how good architect he is because that doesn't make the proposal any better.

[@illustratornamedkasper]

It is comon sense to him, due to his long experience of working with this! The philosophy is simply to use human scale to build in order to make balanced area for people to actually be able to move around. We can still build large apartments, but we have to have the human scale in mind - this is how - and this is what they found out 100 years ago - we achieve the best harmony. If you disagree with this philosophy, you would propably enjoy Dubai. I suggest you move there, you would love it.

[@leonelprieto5378]

iloveGINANDJUICE God! Please stop with the fallacies for one moment so we can argue! Yes, that might be a great idea, but it is not his main point! He is prescribing a very specific tipe of architecture, you just have to see what he shows you and it's all really small scale architecture. Architecture that it's becoming harder and harder to make, unsustainable by nature and expensive! of course Brasilia sucks, of course I'm not saying that we got it solved, of course I'm not saying that we should forget human scale. But this idea of just change the scale ignoring the entire reality it's not only impossible for the cities but pretty stupid.

[@illustratornamedkasper]

I think we agree that there are actually many points resting in his socalled "main point". I also agree with you, that building small is not the perfect solution per se. However, I agree with Gehl that the human scale has been lost in thinking in modernistic architecture. In their website there are examples of how big buildings are perfectly fine, as long as it is not mile after mile - we need a mix, so that, for instance, in each neighbourhood you have the 5 km scale at least somewhere AND some tall buildings. In the future we might be living in smaller apartments with creative solutions. Thank you for a good discussion!

[@aaronreynolds5303]

This is making me change the way I think about designing buildings as well. Gotta stop looking at them from above