The Human Scale Trailer (2013)

Trailer for The Human Scale.

Human Scale: It’s a ticking time bomb. The number of people living in cities will nearly double in the next 40 years, and there isn’t enough time to build the needed infrastructure. According to revolutionary Danish city planner Jan Gehl, even the largest of mega cities must be re-thought and re-designed on a small scale: the human scale. Around 1950, Gehl argues, city planning took on a very specific direction: “bird shit architecture”. Driven by the rapid influx of cars, cities were designed to look good from a plane, ignoring the needs of humans below… those needs which can only be observed at eye level. Human Scale travels around the world to explore how Gehl’s vision of a human megacity –intimate, lively, safe, sustainable and healthy- is being implemented in places like New York, Chongqing and Christchurch.