Research into community spaces - public space

http://brandavenue.typepad.com/brand_avenue/2007/12/public-spaces-p.html


At the beginning of the month, Danish architect and "urban quality consultant" Jan Gehl produced the results of his nine-month study of central Sydney, Australia. The city of Sydney had hired him to produce a body of recommendations in order to improve the city's core, both functionally and experientially.

His report paints a picture of a city at war with itself - car against pedestrian, high-rise against public space. "The inevitable result is public space with an absence of public life," he concludes.
His nine-month investigation found a city in distress. A walk down Market Street involved as much waiting at traffic lights as it did walking. In winter, 39 per cent of people in the city spend their lunchtimes underground, put off by a hostile environment at street level: noise, traffic, wind, a lack of sunlight and too few options for eating.

 The quality of the pedestrian experience in central Sydney and by extension its entire urban fabric, is evaluated in a number of ways, spanning building height, microclimate, perceptions of safety, traffic patterns, and housing types. The graded evaluation of how building frontages throughout the core enhance or harm street life is particularly interesting.