{"id":11143,"date":"2013-11-18T09:00:45","date_gmt":"2013-11-18T14:00:45","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/spacing.ca\/ottawa\/?p=11143"},"modified":"2013-11-17T22:40:59","modified_gmt":"2013-11-18T03:40:59","slug":"human-scale-human-arent-building-cities-people","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/spacing.ca\/ottawa\/2013\/11\/18\/human-scale-human-arent-building-cities-people\/","title":{"rendered":"\u2018The Human Scale\u2019: We\u2019re all human, so why aren\u2019t we building cities for people?"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"http:\/\/spacing.ca\/ottawa\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/7\/2013\/11\/Jan-Gehl-The-Human-Scale.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone size-large wp-image-11161\" alt=\"Jan Gehl The Human Scale\" src=\"http:\/\/spacing.ca\/ottawa\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/7\/2013\/11\/Jan-Gehl-The-Human-Scale-600x337.jpg\" width=\"600\" height=\"337\" srcset=\"https:\/\/spacing.ca\/ottawa\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/7\/2013\/11\/Jan-Gehl-The-Human-Scale-600x337.jpg 600w, https:\/\/spacing.ca\/ottawa\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/7\/2013\/11\/Jan-Gehl-The-Human-Scale-300x168.jpg 300w, https:\/\/spacing.ca\/ottawa\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/7\/2013\/11\/Jan-Gehl-The-Human-Scale.jpg 900w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 600px) 100vw, 600px\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>November 14<sup>th<\/sup> marked the second event in the 2013-2014 <a href=\"http:\/\/urbanforum.ca\">Urban Forum<\/a> calendar, with a public screening of the documentary, <a href=\"http:\/\/thehumanscale.dk\"><i>The Human Scale<\/i><\/a>. The Ottawa premiere of the film by Andreas Dalsgaard, which was presented in collaboration with the <a href=\"http:\/\/canada.um.dk\">Royal Danish Embassy in Canada<\/a>, saw a full house at the <a href=\"http:\/\/mayfairtheatre.ca\">Mayfair Theatre<\/a>, in Old Ottawa South, and was a moving warning as to how we are building our cities, and ways we can work to improve them, and their basic qualities of life.<\/p>\n<p>Focusing on the work of Danish architect Jan Gehl, and his international practice <a href=\"http:\/\/www.gehlarchitects.com\">Gehl Architects<\/a>, the film is divided into five chapters, each with case studies used to either highlight growing urban concerns, such as the possibility of the \u2018gigacity\u2019 built for the car, or precedents of how good design can help to make our metropolises more humane, such as the pedestrianization of Times Square. And while many of the red flags raised in the documentary are not new to those who make urbanism circles their home, the film acts as an important, albeit beautifully shot and highly stylized, reminder of our need to be aware of the impact that our actions and decision will have, as we shape our urban environments.<\/p>\n<p>But perhaps most simply and poetically stated, and acting as the theme throughout the film, is the question of, if we are human ourselves, why are we not building our cities at the scale of the human, or with people, rather than cars, finances, or political rationale, as our primary concern. For as \u2018Chapter 5\u2019 states, \u201cIt is very cheap to be nice to people.\u201d Gehl has made it the trademark of his practice to design in ways that encourage community and spontaneity, engage people at an appropriate scale and speed, and focus on the spaces between buildings, as the areas which are meant to act as our truly public places, and therefore require our greatest attention and philanthropy.<\/p>\n<p>What is of most interesting locally, however, is the timing of the film\u2019s Ottawa premiere, and its correspondence to Ottawa\u2019s \u201c<a href=\"http:\/\/ottawa.ca\/sites\/ottawa.ca\/files\/complete_streets_en.pdf\">Safe Streets<\/a>\u201d proposal as one of twelve planning issues currently open for public consideration, as a part of the \u2018Building a Liveable Ottawa 2031\u2019 review of the City\u2019s Official Plan, Transportation Master Plan, and a host of other urban-related city policies. This recognition of the need to create streets that are \u201cdesigned to meet the needs of all people whether they choose to walk, bike, drive or take public transit\u201d is a promising sign from the city that Ottawa is moving towards the people-focused urbanism emphasized in <i>The Human Scale<\/i>. And while what is planned and what is implemented is not always the same thing, Ottawa seems to be making a conscious effort to move towards more humane streets and sustainable development.<\/p>\n<p><em>Image:\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/thehumanscale.dk\/the-film\/\">The Human Scale<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>November 14th marked the second event in the 2013-2014 Urban Forum calendar, with a public screening of the documentary, The Human Scale. The Ottawa premiere of the film by Andreas Dalsgaard, which was presented in collaboration with the Royal Danish Embassy in Canada, saw a full house at the Mayfair Theatre, in Old Ottawa South,<a href=\"https:\/\/spacing.ca\/ottawa\/2013\/11\/18\/human-scale-human-arent-building-cities-people\/\">Continue reading <span class=\"sr-only\">&#8220;\u2018The Human Scale\u2019: We\u2019re all human, so why aren\u2019t we building cities for people?&#8221;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":8205,"featured_media":11161,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"_ef_editorial_meta_paragraph_assignment":"","_ef_editorial_meta_date_first-draft-date":"","_ef_editorial_meta_checkbox_needs-photo":"","_ef_editorial_meta_number_word-count":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[5296,5297,5299,5300,487,5319,5306,335,373,341,5311],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-11143","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-bikes","category-civic-engagement","category-community","category-culture","category-events","category-film-video","category-maps","category-streetscape","category-transit","category-urban-design","category-walking"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v26.5 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>\u2018The Human Scale\u2019: We\u2019re all human, so why aren\u2019t we building cities for people? - Spacing Ottawa<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/spacing.ca\/ottawa\/2013\/11\/18\/human-scale-human-arent-building-cities-people\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"\u2018The Human Scale\u2019: We\u2019re all human, so why aren\u2019t we building cities for people? - Spacing Ottawa\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"November 14th marked the second event in the 2013-2014 Urban Forum calendar, with a public screening of the documentary, The Human Scale. The Ottawa premiere of the film by Andreas Dalsgaard, which was presented in collaboration with the Royal Danish Embassy in Canada, saw a full house at the Mayfair Theatre, in Old Ottawa South,Continue reading &quot;\u2018The Human Scale\u2019: We\u2019re all human, so why aren\u2019t we building cities for people?&quot;\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/spacing.ca\/ottawa\/2013\/11\/18\/human-scale-human-arent-building-cities-people\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Spacing Ottawa\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2013-11-18T14:00:45+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/spacing.ca\/ottawa\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/7\/2013\/11\/Jan-Gehl-The-Human-Scale.jpg\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:width\" content=\"900\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:height\" content=\"506\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:type\" content=\"image\/jpeg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Kristen Gagnon\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:creator\" content=\"@Spacing\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:site\" content=\"@Spacing\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"Kristen Gagnon\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"2 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/spacing.ca\/ottawa\/2013\/11\/18\/human-scale-human-arent-building-cities-people\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/spacing.ca\/ottawa\/2013\/11\/18\/human-scale-human-arent-building-cities-people\/\",\"name\":\"\u2018The Human Scale\u2019: We\u2019re all human, so why aren\u2019t we building cities for people? - Spacing Ottawa\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/spacing.ca\/ottawa\/#website\"},\"primaryImageOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/spacing.ca\/ottawa\/2013\/11\/18\/human-scale-human-arent-building-cities-people\/#primaryimage\"},\"image\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/spacing.ca\/ottawa\/2013\/11\/18\/human-scale-human-arent-building-cities-people\/#primaryimage\"},\"thumbnailUrl\":\"https:\/\/spacing.ca\/ottawa\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/7\/2013\/11\/Jan-Gehl-The-Human-Scale.jpg\",\"datePublished\":\"2013-11-18T14:00:45+00:00\",\"author\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/spacing.ca\/ottawa\/#\/schema\/person\/b0e5f1f55c96f089d48ac0fa17899cd9\"},\"breadcrumb\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/spacing.ca\/ottawa\/2013\/11\/18\/human-scale-human-arent-building-cities-people\/#breadcrumb\"},\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"ReadAction\",\"target\":[\"https:\/\/spacing.ca\/ottawa\/2013\/11\/18\/human-scale-human-arent-building-cities-people\/\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"ImageObject\",\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/spacing.ca\/ottawa\/2013\/11\/18\/human-scale-human-arent-building-cities-people\/#primaryimage\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/spacing.ca\/ottawa\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/7\/2013\/11\/Jan-Gehl-The-Human-Scale.jpg\",\"contentUrl\":\"https:\/\/spacing.ca\/ottawa\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/7\/2013\/11\/Jan-Gehl-The-Human-Scale.jpg\",\"width\":900,\"height\":506},{\"@type\":\"BreadcrumbList\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/spacing.ca\/ottawa\/2013\/11\/18\/human-scale-human-arent-building-cities-people\/#breadcrumb\",\"itemListElement\":[{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":1,\"name\":\"Home\",\"item\":\"https:\/\/spacing.ca\/ottawa\/\"},{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":2,\"name\":\"\u2018The Human Scale\u2019: We\u2019re all human, so why aren\u2019t we building cities for people?\"}]},{\"@type\":\"WebSite\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/spacing.ca\/ottawa\/#website\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/spacing.ca\/ottawa\/\",\"name\":\"Spacing Ottawa\",\"description\":\"Canadian Urbanism Uncovered  |  Ottawa Architecture, Urban Design, Public Transit, City Hall, Parks, Walking, Bikes, Streetscape, History, Waterfront, Maps, Public Spaces\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"SearchAction\",\"target\":{\"@type\":\"EntryPoint\",\"urlTemplate\":\"https:\/\/spacing.ca\/ottawa\/?s={search_term_string}\"},\"query-input\":{\"@type\":\"PropertyValueSpecification\",\"valueRequired\":true,\"valueName\":\"search_term_string\"}}],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\"},{\"@type\":\"Person\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/spacing.ca\/ottawa\/#\/schema\/person\/b0e5f1f55c96f089d48ac0fa17899cd9\",\"name\":\"Kristen Gagnon\",\"image\":{\"@type\":\"ImageObject\",\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/spacing.ca\/ottawa\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/87230d388db6eafdb39580e87b211db0?s=96&d=identicon&r=g\",\"contentUrl\":\"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/87230d388db6eafdb39580e87b211db0?s=96&d=identicon&r=g\",\"caption\":\"Kristen Gagnon\"},\"description\":\"Kristen is the magazine's architecture critic and editor. 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