opportunities for further research -
Interviewing professionals in the field would have added another layer to the project, and one of my biggest regrets is not reaching out to Jan Gehl while in Copenhagen to talk about his research into designing cities in the human scale.
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It would be interesting to explore how certain landscape elements can influence behavior and change the sequence of how a space is experienced. Water features have an especially interesting relationship with enclosed spaces. Whenever there was an opportunity to look out over a river or body of water, I noticed that people would often do so, even if they were by themselves, and even if their back was turned towards everyone else in the space.
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Designing in a different medium might be the change needed to create better landscapes in the human scale. It could be as easy as drawing more from perspective than plan view, or perhaps directly in 3 dimensions with augmented or virtual reality.
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The concept of access and axis, or how sightlines give clues to people on how to physically move through the landscape, is a key strategy for making an enclosed space easily comprehended, and thus more familiar. This is a powerful facet of human-scale design, and was nearly chosen over the topic of enclosure purely because the homonym title was so catchy.
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Experimental and experiential interventions could be used to modify an enclosed space and test a difference in popularity. Or as Jan Gehl describes it, dropping in design by parachute. This strategy is often employed to “fix� spaces that were not designed in an appropriate scale for humans. Strategies include adding movable furniture, planters, and quickly-erected structures, but an afterthought like this will never replace genuine foresight in design. However, by fixing past mistakes, it becomes more clear how to better design them in the future.
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