Publiek versus privaat op straat

Where the crows turn around
In search of street life in dense Copenhagen city extension projects completed
between 1990 and 2010
For good reasons the public
realm receives much
attention in city and site
development today. It holds
one of the important keys to
allow us to build great cities
where the total sum of urban
life is much more than the
sum of buildings and open
spaces. The authors, Oliver
Schulze and Lin Skaufel, lead
the Studio at Gehl Architects
in Copenhagen. As urban
quality consultants they seek,
develop and apply
progressive working methods
that originate in the extensive
public space research carried
out at the Danish Centre for
Public Space Research since
the 1970’s under the guidance
of Jan Gehl.
Lin Skaufel
Architect
lin@gehlarchitects.dk
Oliver Schulze
Architect
oliver@gehlarchitects.dk
Introduction
We are turning into schizophrenic urban
dwellers! We lead increasingly privatized
and individual lifestyles, which make us
yearn for meeting other people in the
public spaces of our city. At the same
time most of us have grown up outside
urban centers and even though more
and more of us are moving to the city,
we bring with us a set of values and
expectations that have the blueprint of
suburbia written all over it. ‘Street life’
and our complex and somewhat
contradictory relationship to urban
intensity are a rather complex affair.
Our city of Copenhagen is in many
ways an exemplar city that has
responded extremely well to the
challenges affecting many western cities
today. Life in our capital city comes with
many qualities, in the form of lively
streets, squares and parks, a clean harbor
that we can swim in at the height of
summer, cyclists that appear to
outnumber cars on some of our streets
and generally a very easy and stimulating
life where many daily needs can be
1 Old Danish saying, and means something like: ”nothing of interest will come after this point”
As our industry and economy has
reshaped in the past generation, some
land, like the inner city harbor area, has
turned from an industrial asset into
some of the most desirable sites
available for development. This land has
in several areas been handed over to
speculative development interests to
amongst other things, new transport
infrastructure like the new Copenhagen
Metro network.
We have visited these city extension
2010. The purpose of the visits was to
models of the last century alike have go in search of street life in these areas
had their fair share of problems in and to consider new perspectives on
building great urban neighborhoods for why these areas are today often ridiculed
people.
in popular and professional press as
poor living environments: Where even
the crows turn around1 ! These
development areas often occupy
privileged city land where they can
exploit the proximity to the harbor or
nature reserves and make them
accessible to locals and visitors.
We already knew that endemic dullness
is widespread in these areas. However,
street life of the areas and the associated
urban intensity appear to be
outperformed by other forms of lower
and cycling range of our homes.
Ørestaden with the Metro and the construction of future homes and workplaces [by; Lars Gemzøe]
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