A realm for the public
by Henning Thomsen, Gehl Architects
The sustainable village should feature a high commitment to creating the best public realm possible. Modernist planning destroyed the public realm in many cities in the world and this destruction is still being repeated in cities all over the world. Neither in larger cities nor in villages can this continue to go on.
The notion of 'neighbourhood' has become increasingly important in planning ever since the destruction of the public realm by modernist planning became evident. Urban thinkers and theoretists like Jane Jacobs or Richard Sennett, to mention but a few, have made obvious the strong features that a well-functioning neighbourhood can give rise to: a stronger sense of place, a better individual groundedness, a fundamental communal sense of well-being.
The sustainable village should build on design principles that allow for connectedness and communality to come to life in the public realm. Prioritizing pedestrians and cyclists is one way to do this. The movement on either foot or bicycle allows, because of the lower speed, the people moving to be in contact with the people spending time in the public realm. It allows for appreciation of the built surroundings. This does not happen in cars. The car moves faster and its connection to the public realm is dissociated both through the construction (the car as a tin can) as well as because of the speed.
In the sustainable village the focus should be on shared public spaces rather than the segregated public spaces that characterize so many modernistic cities. There should be few spaces dedicated to only one thing, such as car driving. There is no need to continue to be so exclusive. Pedestrians, cycles and cars can easily share the same space, especially in a village setting, where the speed in any case must be reduced when moving about.
The gains are easily recognized. By sharing space, less space needs to be devoted to the necessary mobility infrastructure as a whole that the sustainable village must establish. Instead more space can be devoted to communal affairs. The public realm can become once more the democratic space it was and ought to be, the place where people meet. An urban realm like that, based on democratic principles, could become the fruitful ground on which a new sustainable vision for a village can be formed. This connection, between the urban realm as a democratic space and the urban realm as a greenhouse for sustainable action should be investigated in the design processes leading to the sustainable village.
