While many of you are thinking of the people close to your heart today, we’re thinking about the places we love – and why. What draws us to a hidden laneway, a harbour-side park or a busy city square? Is there a formula that makes us fall for someplace (if not for someone)?
We’ve come up with ‘Six Qualities of Great Urban Places’ – common elements we see across the most vibrant, social and sustainable cities and neighbourhoods anywhere. Stay tuned as we get to the heart of the matter by revealing the qualities over the coming weeks.
Whether used as a starting point, reference point, or end point, we hope this framework will contribute to the ongoing conversation about how to deliver better places for people and planet.
Central Green Forest Park, Beijing, Hassell
What makes a great urban place?
A great urban place is a complex ecosystem that draws together spatial, functional, and emotional qualities to unlock multi-faceted experiences that are greater than the sum of their parts.
Breathing Space, London, Hassell
What's your favourite part of the city?
Maybe you are drawn to a quiet pocket park nestled between towering skyscrapers. Perhaps you seek the comfort of a sidewalk cafe, where the air smells like coffee and the sun hits the street before your day even begins.
Do you enjoy the fluorescently lit crowds in Times Square at night, or the lush green peak overlooking Hong Kong harbour?
Do you feel at home with a fresh coffee in a hip Shanghai neighbourhood, on a Victorian London street, or in a San Francisco loft apartment?
We all love different parts of the city, and the best cities have something for everyone to love.
Simple, right? Not exactly.
Tangshan Geopark Museum, Nanjing, Hassell
Many places make a city
Cities are complex, living organisms, shaped and reshaped on a daily basis by their users and their needs.
By putting spaces, buildings, and activities together, we create places that capture our hearts and minds and become − in every sense of the phrase − integral to our lives.
Some places serve as our homes and as destinations for social interaction; some facilitate production and economic activities; some are defined mainly by the natural environment, and serve also as sources of food, water, energy, materials, and shelter.
And then there are the places that integrate all three aspects of ecology, economy, and community into one, overlapping functions in time and space to deliver greater outcomes across the full triple bottom line. These are the truly great places.
Global 1:1, Shanghai, Hassell
But, due to the built-in complexity of competing and complementing interests, they're also the hardest to recreate.
The framework has been designed to have global relevance, and we hope that local cities, places, and communities will be able to use the qualities as a way to argument and complement their own unique requirements.
Stay tuned for more details!
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