Gehl
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Annual Report 1
2018-19
Con 2
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Our 3 Goals
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From Us To You 2
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Highlighted Projects
Digital Impressions
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Financial Review
Thoughts For The Future
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Our 3 4
Equitable
Developing Healthy& Sustainable
citiesall
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Goals
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We design for equity by: • Making people visible through public life data and thereby
enabling better strategies, planning, design, and decision making. • Connecting people to opportunities and programmed design solutions and homes that are affordable. • Ensuring accessibility, inclusion, upward social mobility, and diversity by engaging with people and co-creating urban strategies and design of new spaces and neighbourhoods.
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We design for health & well-being by: • Meeting people’s basic human needs – like food, air quality, public space and other people – by continuing to develop our knowledge on behaviour, eye level experience and the built environment. • Enabling active lifestyles by designing accessible spaces and networks. • Promoting and designing for active mobility as the primary transport choice in combination with public transport.
We design for sustainability by: • Delivering Masterplanning Frameworks that offer high-density, mixed-use, urban neighborhoods that are livable, sociable, sustainable and adaptable. • Thinking holistically about mobility and making low-carbon mobility systems the easiest choice for all people. • Developing climate resilient solutions and increasing bio-diversity through public space design. • Enabling circularity at a city level and retrofitting of sub-urban and urban areas.
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From Us 6
Location: Huechuraba, Chile Project: Masterplan Framework with Ecology at Its Heart
To You 7
Enabling Change: 2030 Strategy
cities signed a Healthy Food Declaration, as well as a Clean Air Act. We are now looking forward to scaling these services with our partners.
As we look back on the past year, it has been a year of transition – starting new chapters and closing others! We kicked off the year by gathering the entire Gehl organization in Copenhagen for a 3 day GetAway in October 2018. Over the course of three days, we re-visited and co-created the purpose of Gehl and discussed various themes of equal importance to the world, to people, and to us as an organization. For the past two decades, we have been advocating for a change of paradigm in planning. We are changing gear and moving from ‘advocating for change’ to ‘making change’ locally and globally. The GetAway enabled us to shape a collective framework for our future path towards 2030, focused on three core pillars – 1. Continued internationalization, 2. Innovation & digitalization and 3. Partnerships enabling points 1 and 2.
A big thank you to everyone at Gehl. Thanks to all of you for your contributions this past financial year and for your collective achievements and increased impact. We have welcomed new Gehl people, but also had to say goodbye to others. Our memories go especially to Ulrik Nielsen to whom we said a final goodbye this summer as he passed away after almost two years of battling illness. This past year has been the first year with the Innovation Team in full operation. The team has successfully developed the Public Life Platform in beta-version, as well as explored and developed two new services connecting ‘food systems’ and ‘air quality’ to place. Both projects were very timely in relation to the C40 Mayors Summit in Copenhagen in October 2019, where two sub-networks of
Finally, I would like to thank all our clients and collaborators, extending a special thanks to Bernard van Leer Foundation, Eat Foundation and Novo Nordisk – Cities Changing Diabetes for sponsoring our work around foodscape and air pollution.
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West Palm Beach US
Germany Copenhagen Den 8
uhan China
Calgary canada
Aarhus Denmark
Hamar Norway
holm Sweden
Vienna Austria
San Francisco USA Hamburg Germany
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Mannheim Germany
Huechuraba Chile Dusseldorf Germany Londo
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highlighted 9
projects 10
Reducing Air Pollution Through Urban Design
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Masterplan Framework with Ecology at Its Heart
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From Industrial Site To Mixed Use Neighbourhood
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Using Public Life To Frame Hamar’s Mobility Strategy
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UX at The Center of Swiss Railway Strategy
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REDUCING AIR 10
THROUGH UR
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Visualising Istedgade Street After Enhancements
R POLLUTION 11
RBAN DESIGN Client Bernard van Leer Foundation Location Copenhagen, Denmark Collaborators Copenhagen Solutions Lab Google Utrecht University Services Urban Strategy Public Life Data
Air quality in cities is one of the most impactful elements affecting the health and quality of life of all urban residents. For decades, it’s been a well-known and persistent challenge, but one that has seen few successfully implemented solutions. One reason for this is the ‘invisibility’ of air quality in relation to most urban residents’ daily lives. Much of this comes down to availability of air quality data at the human scale. We were tasked with operationalizing the air quality data as it relates to Copenhagen’s everyday life. How does air pollution influence the life we live in our neighbourhood especially for one of the most vulnerable segments of society to poor air quality – young children.
Reduce Exposure We propose a removal of on-street parking in the specific areas associated with high levels of hyperlocal air pollution and the introduction of a green buffer as a pollution barrier. This removes the
proximity of idling vehicles and vehicles parking in close proximity to e.g. outdoor seating areas, while creating a green buffer that naturally protects pedestrians from the spread of ultra-fine particles at ground level. This supports studies that show a 30% decrease in levels of Ultra fine particles at the sidewalk compared to the middle of the road.
Invitation To Cleaner Air Introducing green buffers where possible is proposed, providing a sensory experience and partial protection from hyperlocal air pollution at source. Adding trees and other green element increases the aesthetics of the street as well as providing shade. Ensuring public seating is available gives the opportunity for children and caregivers to stop, and sit if needed. The goal is to scale this approach up and create symbiosis between reducing air pollution and improving health impacts into all urban regeneration projects.
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(1) Original site at foothills of the Andes (2) Render of Mountain Park at foothills of the Andes
MASTERPLAN
WITH ECOLOGY 12
Client Tanica Location Huechuraba, Chile Services Masterplanning & Design Size 150 ha
Santiago is the capital of Chile and one of the largest and most cosmopolitan cities in South America. With a metropolitan population of almost 7 million, the city lies in the country’s central valley, leaning directly against the Andes to its east, and the Chilean Coastal Mountain range to its west. At the northern point of the city lies the district of Huechuraba. There, Gehl was invited by landowner and developer Tanica to create a Masterplan Framework for a 150-hectare brownfield and partially agricultural plot. The client wanted to break away from the traditional urban development approach and subsequent results.
Masterplan Framework Our Masterplan Framework was structured in two parts. The first, a Public Space Strategic Framework that analyses existing physical conditions of the site to inform potential public spaces and street hierarchies. The second, Typologies Studies, that identify and de-
fine what type of building typologies can best deliver the desired public life.
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Public Space Plan Given the site’s context and physical potentials and limitations, it is important to establish a clear street network and public space hierarchy. The hierarchy informs people’s perception of spaces, both consciously and subconsciously, which in turns informs intended behaviours.
Typology Studies Building on the proposed urban layout and space hierarchy, we embarked on typological research, identifying and defining what building typology could support the creation of a diverse, inclusive, and equitable public life. Organizing blocks, and the network of blocks (neighbourhoods) also allows for the management of the unique variables that come with such a geographical location.
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USING PUBLIC HAMAR’S MOBIL 14
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One of Hamar city’s public spaces
LIFE TO FRAME LITY STRATEGY 15
Client City of Hamar Location Hamar, Norway Collaborators MOE Services Transportation & Mobility
Hamar has ambitious goals to improve its mobility in a sustainable way. After years of collaboration on the city’s public space, Gehl was asked to formulate a mobility strategy and action plan.
Developing Mobility Hamar is a charming lakeside city of 30,000 people, just north of Oslo. Already equipped with comprehensive strategic plans, the city wanted to develop its mobility offer, as a way to develop its sustainability credentials, but also to emphasize other city ambitions e.g. as one of the country’s best places to raise a family and host children and young people. To achieve this, Gehl with MOE as sub-consultants was tasked with developing a mobility strategy and action plan. We began by conducting an in-depth data analysis including public space qualities and mobility counts across the city. Workshops, sprints, and interviews with the city assembly, management, citizens and external stake-
holders provided data to identify and validate the potentials and limitations of the current mobility experience. In close collaboration with city staff, both discussing and cowriting texts, Gehl developed four strategic moves and 12 key actions to progress a people-first mobility offer. Each key move was supplemented with an estimated effectiveness score to show how it would contribute to the city’s existing strategic goals. Concept designs and a guide to where first step implementation could be made were also part of the strategy. The aim of the Mobility Strategy is to be a central framing document for the city’s future development, both for overall mobility and public life offers. A key part of this is to help frame stronger connections between the city center and local nodes, and strengthen the development of a ‘short trip’ culture within the city. The Mobility Strategy was confirmed by the Hamar City Council in 2020.
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Inside the Bern Railway Station
UX AT THE
CENTER OF
SWISS RAILWA 16
Client SBB - Swiss Federal Railways Location Bern, Switzerland Services Leadership & Organizational Change
With SBB’s Innovation team, Gehl facilitated the development of a business model that went beyond trains to unlock the potential of passenger ‘user journey’ experiences, SBB’s physical assets, and the places its network serves.
SBB Innovations The Swiss National Rail service SBB operates freight and passenger trains, but also owns stations and considerable real estate around stations. Gehl utilized an ethnographic and lived experience process with SBB’s Innovation team to improve the passenger ‘door to door’ experience across a variety of urban, suburban and rural contexts.
Using the data analysis, on-site “walkshops” and “trainshops”, Gehl led the multi-stakeholder process to explore how SBB can lead a behavioural shift in mobility that is both more digital and also more shared. This was about making better use of land around stations, optimizing parking and “kiss and ride” facilities, improving connections between stations and the city, and creating last-mile strategies for both passengers and freight. The result was a model for a Mobility + Place ecosystem across SBB’s assets to explore how one of the World’s best railway systems might exist subsidy free by 2040.
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Inside the Bern Railway Station
AY STRATEGY 17
financia 18
nueRevenue per market per market
RevenueRevenue per client per Type client 31%
38%
62%
7%
7%
9%
9%
31%
62% 53%
lose to us
Markets close to us
with growing demands Markets with growing demands
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53%
Foundations/InternationalFoundati Public Sector/MunicipalitiesPublic Sector/Municipalities organizations organiza Developers/Private Corporations Developers/Private Corporations other
other
al review 19
Financial Year in Review
markets where we experience a growing demand for our services such as Northern and Eastern Europe, Canada and Latin America, as well as in Asia and Australia.
Across the Gehl Group, our revenue has stabilized at 60 mill DKK. We have invested in our future, primarily in the areas of organization and leadership, innovation and digitalization, along with an important piece of thought leadership with the ‘Soft City’ publication.
Our work with public sector clients including municipalities accounts for 31% of our work, work with developers and private corporations accounts for 53% and finally our work with foundations and international organizations accounts for 9%, which shows how we are successfully applying our ‘people-first’ approach across sectors towards our overall mission of ‘Making Cities for People’.
Approximately 62% of our work is in markets close to us (US and Scandinavia). 38% of our work is in
Financial Team
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Communication Year in Review Two and a half years ago we implemented a Social Media Strategy in collaboration with Untold, our social media consultant.This past year we have grown our Culture & Communication team with more skilled people, specializing in communication design and strategy. Since the strategy was created, we have been focused on growing our online community and bringing an even wider breadth of content to our followers. These efforts have paid off. This fall we celebrated as we surpassed 100.000 followers on our combined social media channels. On our website we continue sharing live updates from projects and our stories of positive change through the Gehl LIVE section, which includes our blog, projects and news updates. Thank you to our online community for continuing to share comments and engaging in our content both on our social media channels, as well as on our website.
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digital impressions 21
100,193 followers 21
thoughts for 22
Looking Towards 2020 We have now embarked on our new financial year, October 2019 – September 2020, and every team is buzzing with exciting projects and inspiring challenges, from public space projects to delivering low carbon mobility networks, to engaging in the development of sustainable and circular new developments and university campuses, to retrofitting and developing existing urban areas globally. Based on our current pipeline for the coming year, we plan a steady growth in 2020 across our three offices. In the US teams we are focused primarily on our work in the US, Canada and Mexico. In Copenhagen we are focused on our increasing portfolio of work in the German speaking region of Northern Europe, in China with our local partners Energy Foundation and China Sustainable Transportation Centre and in Australia, where we have now worked for more than 15 years and keep
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Nürnberg Masterplan Design
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Proposed city park outside Tivoli, Copenhagen, Denmark
our ecosystem of clients and collaborators. We are also looking forward to a very special celebration on the first of May in 2020, when we will be celebrating our 20-year anniversary. We look forward to cheering with every client who wishes to join us in Copenhagen for this joyous event, which will both be thank-
ful for the past and looking forward to the continued collaboration in the future. The one thing that I have learnt through these past 20 years of leading Gehl, is how everything important is about people and relationships, and I look forward to celebrating exactly that with you throughout the next year. Positive change, development
and creation of knowledge and places, all of it with passion and love, only occurs if people are truly inspired by working together and generously sharing that with everyone. I wish you all a great holiday season and look forward to a new anniversary year for Gehl in 2020. Best wishes and thank you, Helle
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Gehl - Copenhagen Vesterbrogade 24, 5th floor 1620 Copenhagen V Denmark Gehl - San Francisco 1211 Folsom Street, 4th Floor San Francisco CA 94103 USA Gehl - New York 395 Hudson St, 8th floor New York NY 10014 24 USA
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