First we shape the city than the city shape us. Winston Churchill
R.Q: How can we create, by designing the streetscape, a safer, more pleasant environment for people rather than for cars?
“The quality of a city has to do with the quality of the public space” said once the urban designer Jan Gehl. But in the course of time, traffic has obtained a predominant influence on the use of public space that such space is only meaningful in its traffic-related functions.
Man, as a user of public space, has been reduced to a small part of the system.By intervening in the domain of infrastructures, the “hardware” and people's behaviours, the “soft” aspects of the city (Sikiaridi/Vogelaar,2006), my thesis addresses the integration of traffic with other forms of human activity. Design can shift back the lay-out of the urban roads to a more predominant public use by starting a process of shifting the language of standardized street elements into tailored public furniture and micro architectures.
Design can bring new approaches on the use of the public space and open new paths of urban design. A gradual transformation of the spaces trough design interventions can invite people to reappropriate the public space by making it convenient, safer, attractive, and sociable.
Man, as a user of public space, has been reduced to a small part of the system.By intervening in the domain of infrastructures, the “hardware” and people's behaviours, the “soft” aspects of the city (Sikiaridi/Vogelaar,2006), my thesis addresses the integration of traffic with other forms of human activity. Design can shift back the lay-out of the urban roads to a more predominant public use by starting a process of shifting the language of standardized street elements into tailored public furniture and micro architectures.
Design can bring new approaches on the use of the public space and open new paths of urban design. A gradual transformation of the spaces trough design interventions can invite people to reappropriate the public space by making it convenient, safer, attractive, and sociable.
