Yasmin Ali

In advance of its America premieres this weekend, Take One Action Film festival brought two Scottish screenings of acclaimed documentary  'The Human Scale', to Edinburgh and Glasgow respectively. Preceeding each screening was a guided walk arranged by A+DS around the two cities, and an audience discussion led by David Sim of Gehl Architects and Planning Aid Scotland to discuss some of the issues raised followed the film showings.

The Human Scale begins with portraits of people who appear as global citizens but emerge through the film's narrative to be urban planning officials within their respective cities, each with a perspective on how their respective cities should be designed for growth with people in mind. A piece of documentary film making, the key characters are the cities themselves which are arranged into themed chapters, each of which deals with a specific question relating to key philosophies regards people-centred urban design. Renowned architect and urbanist Jan Gehl and his colleagues feature as key speakers regards their experiences studying, enlivening and replanning cities as diverse as Copenhagen, Siena, Chongqing, New York and Christchurch.

The Human Scale as working terminology pretty much sums up Gehl's approach regards creating places for people to use, enjoy and socialise. As an architect and urban designer with over forty years' experience, he is renowned for his humanistic approach which goes against what was avant-garde at the start of his career, which saw the work of modernist architects and early town planning experiments which were car-centric, encouraged sprawl, monoculture and high-density mass housing.

As well as hearing from Gehl, we meet a few of his colleagues including Scots architect David Sim who gives an engaging account of some of his work masterplanning Christchurch in the wake of its recent devastating earthquake in 2011. Sim led a people-focused public consultation on ideas for the replanning of Christchurch, where citizens were encouraged to give their views openly without being prejudiced to any proposals. The general ideas matched in terms of broad themes Gehl architects' key findings for people-centred design, like the provision of open spaces, cycle lanes, public squares, low-rise, low-density living, and places for play and social activities. Interestingly, capping the storey heights at around 6-7 storeys also has a return for more efficient yields in terms of real estate given the lack of need for reinforced structural support which is necessary for higher buildings. This was a key factor which the public lobbied for after the masterplan visioning was taken over by central government task force part way through its implementation, again highlighting the importance of engaging citizens as state actors within the planning process.

The film has yet to be screened in America and Denmark, but has already featured globally in several film festivals, and attracted nominations and awards such as The Aljazeera International Film Festival Long Film Award, and The Official Selection at the Sydney Film Festival.

running time: 77mins  // English / Danish // production: Final Cut for Real

Screening courtesy of Take One Action Film Festival / CCA Glasgow

Walks in conjuction with A+DS

Film website - here

Take One Action website - here