More than 30 years ago, long before it became a buzz term in architectural and planning circles, Danish architect Jan Gehl championed the cause of urban design in Life Between Buildings, an influential book that's been translated into numerous languages and published across Europe, North America and Asia. Gehl's thesis is that by starting with public life and the spaces where it happens, the design of buildings becomes a means to an end rather than an end in itself. So the real task is to formulate a vision of what type of public life one wants to see flourishing and then turn to how surrounding buildings should be designed to support it. "First life, then spaces, then buildings - the other way around never works," as he has put it. Professor of Urban Design at the Royal Danish Academy of Fine Arts in Copenhagen, he also runs Gehl Architects-Urban Quality Consultants and, in that capacity, he has been advising O'Callaghan Properties on its latest scheme for Cork. Working with Ambrose Kelly's Project Architects, Gehl is credited with the master plan and urban design of a new "high-end retail" development in a city centre site bounded by Patrick Street, Academy Street, Emmet Place and Bowling Green Street, with the grim Faulkener's Lane as its spine. This lane would be widened and transformed into a "spacious and vibrant retail thoroughfare", according to the environmental impact statement (EIS) compiled by planning consultants Cunnane Stratton Reynolds. What worries Cork City Council's planners, however, is that this would happen at the expense of the two parallel streets.
