Life Between Buildings: Using Public Space

In situations where the degree of crowding can be determined freely, the upper limit for an acceptable density in streets and on sidewalks with two-way pedestrian traffic appears to be around 10 to 15 pedestrians per minute per meter (3 ft.) street width. This corresponds to a pedestrian flow of some one hundred people per minute in a 10-meter-wide

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In connection with the introduction of the hierarchical systems of communal spaces – from the living room to the city’s town hall square – and the relationship of these spaces to various social groups, it is possible to define varying degrees to which different spaces are public and private. At one end of the scale is the private residence with pri

The area that the individual perceives as belonging to the dwelling, the residential environment, can extend well beyond the actual dwelling.

If activity between buildings is missing, the lower end of the contact scale also disappears. The varied transitional forms between being alone and being together have disappeared. The boundaries between isolation and contact become sharper – people are either alone or else with others on a relatively demanding and exacting level. Life between buil

Wherever there are people – in buildings, in neighborhoods, in city centers, in recreational areas, and so on – it is generally true that people and human activities attract other people. People are attracted to other people. They gather with and move about with others and seek to place themselves near others. New activities begin in the vicinity o

The Danish cooperative housing project Tinggården [49], consisting of eighty rental housing units built in 1978, is an example of a building complex in which planners carefully considered both social and physical structure. The goal was to get processes and project to work together. Planning was a joint venture of the future residents and the archi

In connection with the effort to give the positive processes a chance, it is important to note that life between buildings, the people and events that can be observed in a given space, is a product of number and duration of the individual events. It is not the number of people or events, but rather the number of minutes spent outdoors that is impor

Frequent meetings in connection with daily activities increase chances of developing contacts with neighbors, a fact noted in many surveys. With frequent meetings friendships and the contact network are maintained in a far simpler and less demanding way than if friendship must be kept up by telephone and invitation. If this is the case, it is often