Jan Gehl’s approach to investigating the public life of a place was the main inspiration for the earlier part of this graduation project. Juxtaposing the ideas of Jan Gehl and Le Corbusier, their approach in urbanism are my primary sources of inspiration. What or who are your sources of inspiration? Proposed use of space: mix of functions along the future light rail line. Hence, the name of this graduation project: Cities for People -of Tomorrow.

This striking phenomenon depict the very idea of this graduation project – to juxtapose the two topics: Gehl’s ‘cities for people’ (depicted by Paris old town and many other European old towns as the ideal ‘cities for people’) and Le Corbusier’s (1947) ‘the city of tomorrow’ (Tianducheng new town and many other new towns). This exploration reached its turning point in the summer of 2017 when I went to Paris (France) and Tianducheng (China), where I incidentally found two Eiffel Towers, one apparently trying to copy the other. Over the past six years, I have been exploring this topic. This notion has strangely linked me to Jan Gehl’s ‘cities for people’ concept, where instead of a crime scene, he observed how people behave in cities and how cities affect people’s behaviour. It puts forward the fact that observation is a critical part to understand what happened in a crime scene thoroughly – how do people walk what do people touch where is the shortest path to escape. This simple quote by the renowned (fictional) detective Sherlock Holmes triggered and has been steering my academic and professional journey so far. Reza Ambardi Pradana’s project promotes urban vitality in the masterplanning process of Ecopark New Town in HanoiĬan you briefly explain your choice of subject?

Cities for People by Jan Gehl