Skip to content

From People-First to Life-First

How Gehl is approaching designing cities for a thriving future.

People are walking and sitting in a sunny park. Some are using their phones, pushing strollers, or talking. Green grass, trees, and benches are visible, with a movie poster and buildings in the background.
Paramatta Square, Sydney, Australia. Credit: Gehl.

Words

Helle Søholt

Published

Topic

Organization, Sustainability

Companies

Gehl

Featuring

Helle Søholt

For 25 years, Gehl has been committed to one clear mission: making cities for people. This ethos has always acknowledged the ecological dimensions of urban life, even before climate action became mainstream. Today, as the climate crisis intensifies, the firm’s people-first foundation has evolved into a broader life-first approach — one that seeks harmony between people, places, and the planet.

At the core of this philosophy are Jan Gehl’s early principles of assembling, opening up, and diversifying. These concepts were groundbreaking in their simplicity: bringing activities and people together to create vibrant, stimulating environments; designing transparent, porous boundaries so that what happens inside enriches what happens outside; and diversifying spaces to welcome both bustling social energy and moments of quiet reflection. These principles set the stage for an urbanism that treats the built environment as a living system, where social, physical, and ecological dimensions are deeply intertwined.

A diagram with a central circle labeled “LIFE” connected to six icons: water droplet, plant sprout, carrot, tree, human figures, brain, and thermometer, all on a yellow background, illustrating lifes interconnected elements.
Gehl puts life at the center of everything they do. Their design approach balances human-made systems with natural systems, ensuring both people and the planet can thrive together. Credit: Gehl.

This life-first perspective underscores the belief that cities are not only drivers of the climate crisis, but also essential to the solution. Urban planning that promotes walkability, compact living, and shared resources can dramatically reduce emissions while fostering healthier, more connected lifestyles. The neighborhood becomes the critical scale of intervention: it’s where everyday choices meet policy, where behavior change is most visible, and where the cumulative impact of design decisions shapes both people’s well-being and planetary health.

Gehl’s journey reflects this expanding awareness. Since 2000, projects like Public Space Public Life studies and low-carbon mobility plans helped cities such as London, Melbourne, and Copenhagen transform their public realms while cutting enabled carbon emissions — the emissions that arise from how people move, gather, and live in urban settings. The work recognized early on that many of the activities people cherish most about urban life — walking to see friends, enjoying vibrant streets, connecting with neighbors — are inherently low-carbon. With thoughtful design, sustainable choices can become not just possible, but delightful.

A group of people stand and walk along a city sidewalk lined with bicycles, trees, and balloons, in front of a brick building with round windows and a brown patterned wall.
As urban quality consultants, Gehl helped Copenhagen’s Carlsberg City define a public life-focused vision for the area that reflected its method of prioritizing life first. Credit: Andreas Raun.

In 2006, Gehl expanded into masterplanning, embedding densification strategies, sustainable mobility corridors, and inclusive public space design into projects from Malmö to New York. By 2014, systemic change became the focus, marked by the creation of the Gehl Institute in the US and new frameworks for healthier, more inclusive places. Four years later, aligning with the UN Sustainable Development Goals elevated this agenda further, connecting urban design directly to global imperatives of equity, health, and climate action.

Looking forward to 2025 and beyond, Gehl emphasizes that solving the climate crisis requires cross-sector collaboration. No single discipline or siloed approach can achieve the scale of transformation needed. By weaving together policy, design, community engagement, and cultural change, Gehl seeks to reimagine neighborhoods as interconnected ecosystems — places where human and more-than-human life can thrive together.

Four people stand around a large table covered with photos and papers, sorting and organizing them in a bright conference room. A presentation is projected on a screen at the end of the room.
Gehl worked with the Stanford Doerr School of Sustainability — Stanford University’s first new school in 70 years — to tackle sustainability and climate change. Credit: Gehl.

This holistic vision is now embedded in projects spanning philanthropy, higher education, and national policy, including contributions to Denmark’s latest National Architecture Policy. The life-first approach recognizes that quality public space, biodiversity, and climate resilience are inseparable. Cities are not just human habitats; they are shared environments where the health of people, economies, and natural systems rises and falls together.

As Gehl continues to expand its portfolio, the principle remains clear: design is never just about buildings. It is about nurturing the entire web of life. By centering design on both people and planet, Gehl reminds us that the future of urbanism lies not in domination of nature, but in symbiosis with it.

Want to learn more about Gehl’s work? Click here.