Curtin University Sustainability Policy (CUSP) Institute Rediscovering Urban Design through Walkability: An Assessment of the Contribution of Jan Gehl. Anne Matan This thesis is presented for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy of Curtin University July 2011 ii DECLARATION To the best of my knowledge and belief this thesis contains no material previously published by any other person except where due acknowledgment has been made. This thesis contains no material which has been accepted for the award of any other degree or diploma in any university. Signature: Date: 6.12.2011.. iii iv ABSTRACT Urban design is being rediscovered. For most of the past 50 years it has lacked the concrete theory necessary to guide praxis. As a field it has related only sporadically and selectively to experiential knowledge and was essentially still entrenched within formulistic Modernist approaches. This has limited urban design as practiced to a design profession focused on aesthetics and individual projects without being part of the mainstream city-shaping process. The vacuum in city politics has been filled by modernist traffic engineering and car-based planning. This has limited urban design’s ability as a field to respond to the need for sustainable, vibrant and inclusive urban environments. In particular, it has failed to address the force and power of car-based planning. However, there is scope for a profession of urban design that considers a city holistically and is an advocate for the needs of pedestrians. In particular, there is scope for an urban design practice that is able to challenge the pre-eminence of the auto-focused shaping of cities. These determinations necessitate a different approach to designing our cities. Through work in over 40 cities, Danish urban designer Jan Gehl has begun to demonstrate a new theory and practice of urban design that rediscovers it potency through an emphasis on walkability. This study considers the theory and practice of urban design from a walkability perspective in order to facilitate a more effective, sustainable, humanistic and responsive approach, developing an evaluation framework based on Jon Lang’s (1994) call for a more encompassing urban design approach. This framework is then applied to the work of Gehl, as a case study of an urban designer who has constantly focused on the needs of people within city design, asking what is the significance of Gehl’s work and theory to urban design? Fundamentally urban design is concluded to be about creating cities, or improving existing ones, to be vibrant and sustainable places that relate to people’s use and needs—especially pedestrians—using the skills and theories of various disciplines and depending to a large degree on the public and political process to define the values and priorities. It is about creating hopeful resilient places that are able to v adapt and respond to varying social, environmental and economic needs and about creating positive changes in urban environments. The study concludes that there is scope for urban design to move beyond its current limitations to work from a base of experiential knowledge about the city and its use that is focused on a reflective and experiential approach, building on solid practice based theory and on planning for pedestrians. Gehl’s work, both in theory and practice, is explicitly humanist, offering normative urban design theories based on substantive research, is part of organic urban theory and is embedded in ideas of pedestrian based transport planning. As a practitioner, Gehl’s methods enable experiential knowledge to come to the forefront of urban design concerns. Building from Gehl’s focus on the need to overcome formulistic and automobile-dominated urban planning would enable urban design’s aesthetic and prescriptive based theories to have a new and deeper meaning: sustainable urban design is at its heart planning and designing for walkability. This thesis determines that a core component of urban design theory and practice is advocating for the needs of pedestrians. vi ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS There have been many people that have helped me with this thesis and I would like to give them my most heartfelt thanks. In particular, I would like to say thank you to: Peter Newman, Curtin University. Thank you for all of your endless work and for starting me on this path and guiding me through the PhD process. Jan Gehl, Gehl Architects. Thank you so very much for your encouragement, for all of your sharing, support and guidance. Helle Søholt, Lars Gemzøe, Oliver Schulze, Sia Kirknæs and everyone at Gehl Architects. Thank you for sharing with me so freely and for teaching me so much. Also a big thank you to Birgitte Bundesen Svarre and Anna Modin for all of your assistance and help and for sharing you knowledge and insights with me. Jeff Kenworthy, CUSP. Thank you for your encouragement. Dora Marinova, CUSP. Thank you so much for all of your help and assistance with all of my endless questions. AHURI. Thank you for all of your support and encouragement through your postgraduate symposiums. Thank you to all those who let me pick their brains and freely gave their time to answer my questions, especially those that participated in the interviews. Thank you so much. City of Perth, DPI and UDC. Thank you for allowing me access during the Perth PSPL surveys. Wendy Sarkissian, Sarkissian Associates Planners. Thank you very much for all of your guidance and assistance. Allan Johnstone, Murdoch University, thank you for all of your advice and encouragement. To everyone at CUSP, thank you for all of your support and guidance. Justine Boow. Thank you for all of your support, encouragement and guidance. To my family Jean-Paul, Jim and everyone. Thank you for all of your support, encouragement and guidance. This research was supported by APA, CPA, AHURI and CUSP. Thank you. vii viii TABLE OF CONTENTS DECLARATION .............................................................................................................. iii ABSTRACT ..................................................................................................................... v ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS .................................................................................................vii TABLE OF CONTENTS ......................................................................................................ix TABLE OF TABLES ........................................................................................................ xvii TABLE OF FIGURES ....................................................................................................... xix CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION ...................................................................................... 1 1.1 Preface................................................................................................................... 5 1.2 Background to urban changes .............................................................................. 7 The walking city .................................................................................................................. 7 The transit city .................................................................................................................... 8 The automobile city ............................................................................................................ 8 Modernist planning movement .......................................................................................... 9 1.3 Sustainable urban design .................................................................................... 11 1.4 Introduction to urban design .............................................................................. 14 1.5 Introduction to Jan Gehl ..................................................................................... 15 1.6 The need for this research .................................................................................. 16 1.7 Research questions and objectives ..................................................................... 17 1.8 Research design and methods ............................................................................ 18 1.9 Research framework ........................................................................................... 23 Interpretive Description .................................................................................................... 24 Sustainable leadership theory .......................................................................................... 29 1.10 The research assumptions and explanations .................................................... 30 Issues addressed and not addressed by this dissertation ................................................ 31 1.11 Structure of the dissertation ............................................................................. 32 SECTION 1. URBAN DESIGN: REVIEW AND OVERVIEW CHAPTER 2: URBAN DESIGN THEORY: BRIEF HISTORY OF URBAN DESIGN AS A RESPONSE TO MODERNISM ..................................................................................... 39 2.1 Introduction ........................................................................................................ 41 2.2 Introduction to urban design .............................................................................. 41 2.3 Modernism .......................................................................................................... 42 Transport and automobile-based planning .....................................................................