Book Talk: ‘How to Study Public Life’
Where: Center for Architecture
536 LaGuardia Pl.
212-683-0023 Price: $10; free for members and students
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Jan Gehl and Birgitte Svarre will present their new book How to Study Public Life (Island Press).
How do we accommodate a growing urban population in a way that is sustainable, equitable and inviting? This question is becoming increasingly urgent to answer as we face diminishing fossil-fuel resources and the effects of a changing climate while global cities continue to compete to be the most vibrant centers of culture, knowledge and finance.
Jan Gehl has been examining this question since the 1960s, when few urban designers or planners were thinking about designing cities for people. But given the unpredictable, complex and ephemeral nature of life in cities, how can we best design public infrastructure—vital to cities for getting from place to place, or staying in place—for human use? Studying city life and understanding the factors that encourage or discourage use is the key to designing inviting public space.
In How to Study Public Life Jan Gehl and Birgitte Svarre draw from their combined experience of more than 50 years to provide a history of public-life study as well as methods and tools necessary to recapture city life as an important planning dimension.