The pedestrian in motion.

A city is the art of relationship as opposed to the art of architecture. “A city is a dramatic event in the environment”… if a city appears dull and uninteresting, it has failed. The excitement cannot come out of scientific research and technical solutions; “averages” of human behaviour and weather patterns do not give an inevitable result... To shape the environment we “manipulate within the tolerances”. Environment produces an emotional reaction, for example -

'SERIAL VISION' ... concerning sight: scenery is revealed in a series of jerks or revelations, even though an occupant may walk through the town at uniform speed. The human mind responds to contrast – if we walk down a long straight road we stop registering the scenery, as there are no revelations.

'Existing view + emerging view' normally occur as an accidental chain of events but can be used as a tool for the imagination to “mould the city into a coherent drama”...

'Motion' results in an existing view + a revealed view.

'PLACE' ... involves the reaction to the position of our body in the environment... Unconscious thought: “I am in front of it… I am entering it… I am in it”, stems from major impacts of exposure and enclosure. This instinctive sense of position in relation to the environment can’t be ignored, and can be exploited. When a town is designed from the point of view of the moving person, the town becomes “plastic”: a dynamic journey through exposures and enclosures, constraint and relief. Along with the feeling of being positioned in the environment, a here is created that requires a there. Location and destination: movement. Every intervention in the city should be designed with the pedestrian in motion in mind. [I totally feel like this is talking about me as I traverse the city].

Humans need a sense of place as well as a sense of “somewhere else”.

Cullen, G. The Concise Townscape. Architectural Press. 1961.