2 Lessons from Jan Gehl’s “Life Between Buildings”
Urban design can get you more friends, if done right
Danish architect Jan Gehl has condensed years of research into this amazing book I picked up from my university library.
Here I squeeze out 2 lessons from “Life between buildings” that will make you look at streets and houses with new eyes.
1 | The longer people stay outdoors, the more often they will interact with others.
There are 3 kinds of outdoor activities.
Necessary activities. Commuting. Grocery shopping. Dropping kids at school. People will perform these activities regardless of the quality of the physical environment.
Optional activities. Going for a walk. Visiting a friend. Sunbathing. The occurrence and duration of these activities are dependent on the quality of the environment where people engage (or not) in them.
Social activities. Any activity that involves social interaction. These normally occur as a result of necessary or optional activities.
When the quality of the physical environment improves, people will take more time to do their necessary activities.
They will stop on a shaded bench on the way to the supermarket. They will take a longer route back home from work because the walk is enjoyable.
They will also engage in dramatically more optional activities, and for longer.
Both these developments lead to people spending more time outdoors. This in turn raises the chances of social activities to occur.
Just like car traffic and car ownership increase when we build new roads, the number and duration of outdoor activities people engage in will grow in a good quality built environment.
The example of Copenhagen is telling. The Danish capital underwent a massive restyling in the second half of the 20th century. The city was re-oriented towards pedestrians.
The result? Outdoor activities — believed not to be part of the scandinavian culture — developed as soon as the physical environment was suited for them.
At the same time, a bad quality physical environment will jeopardise human connections and meetings.
One example is that of 3 adjacent streets in San Francisco with different traffic levels.
The study highlights the relation between the walkability of the street and the number of friends people make among their neighbours.
Light traffic: 3 friends + 6.3 acquaintances on average among their neighbours.
Heavy traffic: 0.9 friends + 3.1 acquaintances.
It’s really that straightforward.
2 | Semi-private spaces are where social life begins.
Between private and public dwellings there is usually a buffer zone. Or rather, there should be.
A front yard. A staircase. A communal garden. A parking lot.
These places are not fully private: other people can use them.
They are not fully public either: they are less public than the town hall square.
It’s in this grey area that social life can spring. This gradual shift from private to public space makes people feel more confident to spend time outdoors.
For a parent, it’s much easier to let their child play in the block’s playground than in the public park, for the different sense of belonging and security.
It’s important that the transition from private to public spaces is fluid, with the presence of semi-private spaces that invite people to move in and out, rather than to shut themselves in.
The model Jan Gehl often refers to is the “Woonerf street”.
Woonerf is a dutch word, meaning “living yard”. Before being copied and transplanted elsewhere, it was in The Netherlands and in the Flanders (Belgium) that Woonerf streets came to light.
Simply put, a street is “Woonerf” if traffic is slowed down to walking pace and there is no segregation between modes of transport. This way, the street is not reserved to cars, and residents, especially kids, can use it as a meeting place.
This is opposed, for instance, to the American suburb. Here there is no transitional/semi-private space. You are either in your house, or completely out in public.
When you add to that the “need” to park your car right in front of your door, the street is dead.
We all understand the power of our environment when it comes to habits. We’ll be far more prone to read if the book is on the table rather than up on the shelf.
However, we still quite underestimate the influence that the built environment poses on our social life. Skimming through “Life between buildings” is a good place to start taking this into consideration.
