Beautiful cities, good experiences

At eye level the good city provides opportunities for walking, staying, meeting and expression, and that means it must provide good scaleand good climate. Common to these desired objectives and quality requirements is that they deal largely with physical and practical matters.

In contrast, work with the city's visual quality is more general. It deals largely with the design and detail of individual elements, and how all the elements are coordinated. Visual quality involves total visual expression, aesthetics, design and architecture.

City space can be designed so that all practical requirements are met, but randomly combined details, materials and colors rob it of visual coordination.

In contrast, city space can be designed with dominating emphasis on aesthetics to the neglect of functional aspects. That the space is beautiful and the details carefully designed is a quality in itself, but far from enoughif basic requirements for security, climate, and opportunities for staying are notmet.

The important aspects of city space must be interwoven into a convincing whole.

In his book, City: Rediscovering the Center (1988), William H. Whyte introduces the concept of the100% place. As the nameimplies, 100% places arethe spaces and localities where allimportant city space qualities are present. Practical concerns for users’ needs merge seamlessly with concern for detail and totality: here is where people want to be.

Perhaps the world-farmous Piazza del Campo in Siena became famous precisely because this city square offers that rare combination of qualities. All functional and practical needs are convincingly met. It is safe and comfortabletowalk, stand, sit, listen and talk here. In addition, all elements have been merged into a convindng architectural whole, where proportions, materials, colors and details reinforce and enrich the other qualities of the space. Piazza del Campo is a well-functioning and very beautiful city space that for 700 years has served and continues convincingly to serve as Siena’s main square. Concern for the human dimension is never outdated.

In addition to independent work with space and details, it is often possible to make significant quality improvements if a city space is designed to highlight special qualities at the site. New and attractive combinations are possible when city space can be linked directly to water surfaces and quay edges, when contact with parks, flowers and landscaping can be ensured, when spaces can be oriented perfectly in terms of local climate.

Topography and height differences also provide good opportuni- ties to add value. Any differences in height can enhance experiences for pedestrians compared to walking on flat surfaces. New views and experiences pop up. The streets of San Frandsco are full of this type of possibility, however minor differences in height can also provide drama at eye level.

Views of attractions near and far also enrich city space. Being able to look at a lake, the sea, a landscape or distant mountains is much in demand as a city space quality.

There is inherent potential in working with visual and aesthetic elements. For people walking through the city, beautiful space, carefully planned details and genuine materials provide valuable experiences on their own merits and as a valuable extra layer to the other qualities the city has to offer.

Naturally, squares and streets can also be designed specifically to provide visual experiences. Here the design and details of the space play a very important role, which can be expanded and reinforced by appealing to the other senses by providing trickling water, fog, steam, aromatic and sound impressions, for example. The main attraction ofthese spaces is not just dty life as such, butrather a potpourri of sensory impressions.

Throughout history, art has made a valuable quality contribution to city space through monuments, sailptures, fountains, building details and decorations. Art communicates beauty, monumentality, remembrance of important events, comments on life in society, fellow inhabitants and city life, together with surprises and humor. Now as ever, city space can serve an important function as an interface between art and people.

In recent years in central parts of Melbourne, efforts to combine art policy and dty space policy have served as an inspiring example. The goal has been for the city's common space to serve as a versatile gallery for conternporary art, so that when the people of Melbourne are in the city, they will meet carefully selected and well-placed works of conternporary artists fram many disciplines. A three-pronged art policy ensures that selections are arrent and provid ea wealth of experience. The three focus areas are works on permanent display, temporary works and installations, and extensive communication about art to the inhabitants of the dty through art centers. One particular emphasis is interactive opportunities for children based onthe principle: come and learn more aboutwhat you seein the daty.

The city policy of emphasis on installations and temporary works makes avaluable contribution to the attractive selection of experiences and unpredictability. Along the Gty’s many narrow lanes and arcades, changing artists decorate spaces with intensity, fantasy and humor, but only for a limited number of months. Then other artists are invited to work on other passageways. There is always something new to look at, and many surprising and humorous comments to discover about the site, the city and contemporary life.

Trees, landscaping and flowers play a key role among the elements in city space. Trees provide shade in warm summer months, they cool and cleanse the air, define city space and help accentuate important sites. A large tree on a square signals: “This is the place”. Trees along boulevards underscore a linear sequence, and trees that stretch their branches over the street hint of the presence of green space inthe dty.

In addition to their immediate aesthetic qualities, the green elements inthe dry havea symbolicvalue. The presence of green elements passes onarmessage about recreation, introspection, beauty, sustainability and the diversity of nature.

After many years in which trees were felled to make room for traffic or simply died due to poor growth conditions and pollution, there has been a welcome renaissance of green elements in cities more recently. Efforts to improve the conditions for city life and bicydists are often ambined with planting new trees and expanding green urban areas. Every year since 1995, 500 new trees have been planted along streets in Melbourne as part of the city's urban renewal policy, and in accordance with a plan adopted in 2008, New York Citys goal is to plant ane million new trees in public spaces agoss the city.The many new green elements make a crucial contribution to city quality while reinforcing New York's wanted profile as a sustainable green metropolis.

The lighting in city space has a great impact on orientation, searity and visual quality inthe dark hours.

Many different lighting strategies are used around the world, One extremeis dties in the USA that have abandoned street lighting under the pretext that motor vehides light up the night. Needless to say, these areas are usually as dark as a tomb and there is not much for people to look forward to afterthe sun goes down.

A variety of principles are employed in areas that do use lighting. Many dties are pragmatic and functional in their approach. Lighting principles have often changed during various periods of urban construction and expansion, leaving many types of lamps and various colors of light, which typically results in a random and visually chaotic daty scene when night falls.

Other cities have taken a very conscious approach to lighting, recognizing the great impact it has on city quality, aswell as its potential as an independent artistic means of expression.

In Melbourne city lighting is a natural part of the city’s overall art policy program "Light as Art.”

Lyon, France is another good example of a city that has adopted a well-considered artistic lighting policy that takes into account both light setting and color.

Valuable innovations in work with the visual appearance of space at night can also be seen at the city space level. One good example is the Town Hall Square in Sankt Plten, Austria (1995 — 97), which employs indirect reflected light and a light setting that varies according to time of year and the events being held on the square.

The criteria for good city quality in pedestrian landscapes are surmmarized in a 12-point keyword list on page 239. Point 12 is positive sensory experiences. The reason for listing this point last is that visual quality is an umbrella concept that should include all of the elements in the city landscape. The placement also represents a conscious underscoring of the factthatvisual quality cannot ensure city quality on its own, but that good cities at eye level are geated by working on all 12 quality giteria together.

If cities are to function and invite people to enjoy them, under all cir cumstances, the physical, practical and psychological aspects must be thoroughly treated and then enhanced with valuable layers through work on visual qualities. This connection is emphasized because although many projects do a fine job of developing the visual aspects, they neglect other more pragmatic qualities.

All over the world are examples of city districts and city space where visual and aesthetic considerations have unilaterally dominated design. Perhaps these urban projects and urban spaces will be pictured in ar chitecture magazines, but in the real world these city spaces typically work poorly or not at all, because key consideration for people and life in public space is missing.

All quality criteria must be part of deliberations — everytime.

Jan Gehl