Leading Change in Cities

This month’s GreenSource Magazine has a great interview with Jan Gehl, an architect and founding partner of Gehl Architects and a Senior Fellow of the Design Futures Council. For much of his career, Jan and his team have focused on the development of human-scale strategies to improve cities. Working globally in cities like Copenhagen, Melbourne, Seattle, New York, and Sao Paulo, the firm’s work integrates itself with what Jan calls “the people scale” to better understand how a city’s inhabitants live, work, and play.

In the interview, Jan says, “While there are a lot of planners and architects looking after the airplane and rooftop scales, the treatment of the people scale has been very distant. It is as if nobody has really addressed making good urban habitats for homo sapiens.” As I travel the United States and increasingly the globe to work with clients and meet with thought leaders, I’m struck by how true this is. Many American cities have pockets of good urban space — walkable, pedestrian-scaled, for varied uses — and yet they are just small pockets in an increasingly bland landscape designed for everything but homo sapiens.

It seems strange to need to suggest that architects, interior designers, and urban designers should focus more on how people actually feel in the spaces they create — regardless of the scale at which they work. And yet, we seem to have lost this important ethos as a profession.

Opportunity to Lead

Kawneer Co. President Glen Morrison (from left), Leo A Daly Executive Vice President Charles Dalluge, Communication Arts Co-chairman Richard Foy, Greenway Group Chairman Jim Cramer, and DuPont Building Innovations Commercial Business Manager Casey Robb

Most striking about last week’s meeting of the Design Futures Council Executive Board was extensive talk about opportunity. What’s the best use of this recession? was the prominent topic of debate and brainstorming among members of this prestigious group of architecture, engineering, construction, and construction product leaders.

There was no denying that times are tough and getting tougher. “This recession is reaching around the globe and we’re not seeing many hiding places,” noted one firm’s managing partner. Another individual relayed his expectation that by the end of the year, the firm he oversees will be 50 percent as large as it was a year prior.

Yet almost without exception, participants outlined opportunities they are either currently pursuing or that they’re keeping an eye on:

• “There’s an opportunity do a lot better work in this economic environment.”
• “There are more high-profile, quality assignments now than during the building boom.”
• “There is pent up demand for our services.”
• “There is still demand for replacement hospitals.”
• “We’re putting a lot of focus on imbuing other project types with the hospitality experience, for example, health care and senior living.”
• “Crisis gives us a chance to change faster.”
• “Now is the time to be bold. It’s less expensive to be innovative than it used to be.”
• “We have more time now to get close to clients and understand their needs.”

While mainstream media continues to push messages that focus on the gloom of the current economic situation, leaders with foresight see opportunity and are willing to take strategic risks to turn those opportunities into advantages.