Life between buildings: Using Public Space: The history of Jan Gehl’s book and the legacy of its philosophy for designing cities at human scale

Abstract

The scope of this essay is to provide a brief overview of the history and legacy of the book Life between buildings: Using Public Space written by Jan Gehl, Danish architect and urban consultant, renowned for his pioneering work towards the promotion of human-centered urban design. The paper starts with explaining the concept of the Human Scale in urbanism studies, both as a means to view the city focusing on what is happening at ground level and as a design priority. It continues with the story of the making of the book, back in 1971, and the impact it has had in establishing the human-centered approach in urban design as a rising trend, especially in the last two decades. The essay concludes with the three major lessons that we can extract from the book: (1) knowledge about human senses; (2) learning from observing; and (3) putting people first.