Creation Of New Cities With Modernist Styles

Creation of new cities with modernist styles

Introduction

Jan Gehl is a Danish architect who is dedicated to making cities for people. Since the year 40, the urbanization of cities based on cars is planned and in the 60s the modernist architectural style emerged in order to have an aesthetic architectural project, leaving aside the scale of people and planningBased on them, making an absolute isolation design. The urban context is the public space that we make as a coexistence area and these have the ability to influence individuals to participate in activities, this is where one must be urban, that is, to be able to connect with complete strangers.

Developing

At present, the human being does not fit into the modernity of megacities, because of the way in which they are designed and built. First we form the cities and then let them form us. This is because adequate studies on people, architecture and urban planning are not done, more research is investigated and more understood on the habitats of animals than that of ourselves. Something that causes this is the rapid growth of cities and the transfer of people living in the periphery to the city. According to studies by the United Nations Organization (UN) in 1950 the world population was 2.600 million people.

In 1999 of 6. 000 million, in 2011 of 7.000 million people and the world population is expected to increase in 2. 000 million people in the next 30 years, passing the 7.Current 700 million at 9.

700 million in 2050, being able to reach 11.000 million for 2100. This drastic growth has an impact on urbanization processes and migration movements, which leads to affecting future generations, if planning for these growths are not begun. GEHL when he graduated from the university in 1960 focuses on the style and aesthetics of buildings instead of people.

Until he meets psychologist Ingrid and she asks “why do people don’t care about people?". This was the question that changed Jan’s perspective about architecture and urbanism. Start research in different cities on how people interact in them and how to improve people’s quality of life. Based on his research, studies and projects, the documentary The Human Scale de Andreas Dalsgaard emerges. The documentary is divided into 5 chapters, of which only 2 will be taken into account for this writing, these are: Chapter 2 "You live what you care" and the 3 "How to do more with less".

In the study of the city of Copenhagen, Denmark, Gehl realized that there was no urban life in the urban context, green areas were had, but no activities were carried out in them. In this city a systematic study of automobile traffic was carried out and to better be able to fluency and efficiency of the cars the highways increased, the streets were enlarged to increase the speeds, etc. But Gehl wanted to change this approach and to solve this problem with a group of students and teaching colleagues, gathering information from people in public spaces.

How many people passed by, where they were going, what activities they carried out, and when they see how the behavior of people was evolved as automobile streets were eliminated and transformed to pedestrian streets. As the streets were pedestrianized, public life grew, the main commercial street became a walk, the parking lot was eliminated and it became a large square. With what they realized that the same thing happened with the cars;The more roads more traffic are built there are. The more public space it is left for people, the more public life there is. 

This allows the coexistence and interaction of people in the same common space, which makes it possible that different strata of society, different users of users and different lifestyles are found. It was achieved that 35% of the pedalara population and 25% would manage their cars. The way cities are built influences people’s lifestyle. In New York this study was implemented in 2007, when they realized that the world was being suffocated with traffic and contamination of cars, and that the solution was not to add more ways. It is said that what measures is what matters to you.

In New York they did not have the quantitative tools that measured the pedestrian flow, so pedestrian traffic had never been measured only car traffic. The only mistake is that the wrong value was being maximized, to solve it, new standards and parameters (the human being) should have. Times Square was dedicated to cars in 90% and 10% to people, but the 90% that used these spaces were people and 10% cars. The solution of this city was to invest more in the existing infrastructure, close streets and make them pedestrians by adding urban furniture according to the city, implement cyclovías. 

What New York does a spontaneous city is when the masses of people live together in public space. In the spaces there are smells, colors, sound environments and these are perceived when you are at a rate of 5km per hour and with a perspective with a human scale focus. The spaces create experiences and these of moments are kept in the body memory of one, that is, the memory of the senses. It is the way we can make visible how the world touches us. In Melbourne, Australia the alleys were considered frightening, dark spaces, and produced insecurity where the garbage was deposited and the air conditioning equipment was. 

This was so until they were given a use from the people. These spaces are fresh, have shadow and are cozy;What was done to take advantage of them was to open the buildings and put urban furniture, to invite people to enter, sit and live together. You can change the idea of a space if you are given use, if any. The objective is to create active cities, that is, with urban life without losing the essence of the place and on a scale that can be lived by the human, if buildings are created of great height. Without courtyards and recreation spaces, person has no need to leave and is lazy to go down and go up again.

However, if you have it at the same height it is easier to leave and have contact with the outside. What gives life to a city are people and how they interact with them, for this reason information such as socio -demographic and culture components should be collected so that they do not lose the essence and this information collected to capture it with urban plannings appropriate to peopleand not cars. The only way to promote this interaction is providing more public spaces and green areas where different activities can be carried out. As for cars to reduce their consumption and make more fluid traffic, more highways should be made, but stop doing them and instill the use of public transport and bicycles.

conclusion

To promote them, you must have a good infrastructure and means, the routes must be considered when urban planning. Because not only is it about putting the infrastructure to put, studies have to be done on the region where they will be implemented and this involves the population, since they are the ones that will use it, this leads us to effective and efficient projects. However, I consider that everyone must put on their part not only architects and urban planners, users have to change their perspective of social strata, public transport and coexistence in spaces. New measurement parameters must be had. We cannot force citizens to use the means provided to them, but they can be invited to do so.