Soft City: Building Density for Everyday Life reframes urban density not as a planning metric but as a lived condition — arguing that the quality of daily experience depends on how closely, comfortably, and flexibly the built environment can accommodate human needs.
About This Book
Most cities have pursued density as an end in itself, producing environments that are technically compact yet experientially barren. David Sim's Soft City makes the case that density must be accompanied by diversity — of building types, street configurations, movement patterns, and microclimatic responses — to generate genuinely liveable urban environments. Drawing on his practice at Gehl, Sim works through the building blocks of neighbourhoods with forensic care: how buildings are organised and oriented, how people move through and alongside one another, and how the built fabric can respond to climate. The result is a visually driven argument for human-scale urbanism that speaks equally to urban designers, architects, planners, and engaged citizens.
Key Features
- 260 pages of graphic case studies, diagrams, and comparative analysis of urban conditions from around the globe
- Written by David Sim, partner and creative director at Gehl
- Published by Island Press
What You'll Discover
- Why increasing density alone is insufficient — and what spatial, typological, and organisational qualities must accompany it to produce genuinely humane cities
- How building type, orientation, and layout directly shape the ease and comfort of daily movement through urban neighbourhoods
- The relationship between urban form and climate adaptation, and how the built environment can be designed to respond to changing environmental conditions
- A visual vocabulary of urban elements — drawn from both historical precedent and new invention — that can be applied across diverse city contexts
About the Author
David Sim is a partner and creative director at Gehl, the Copenhagen-based practice internationally recognised for its work on human-scale urbanism and public life. He draws on extensive cross-cultural design experience to bridge the gap between large-scale urban thinking and the fine-grained decisions that shape everyday city life.
Specifications
- Format: Softcover
- Pages: 260
- Dimensions: 267 x 203 mm
- Language: English
- ISBN: 9781642830187
- Publisher: Island Press
- Publication Date: [Details available upon request]
Perfect For: Urban designers, architects, and planners working on residential density and neighbourhood design, as well as students and policy practitioners engaged with liveable cities and climate-responsive urbanism.