The document summarizes William Whyte's study of small urban public spaces in New York City in the 1970s. Whyte studied how environmental factors like seating, sunlight, trees and food vendors impacted whether spaces were well-used. His research found that spaces with ample movable seating, greenery for shade and privacy, access to sun, and food vendors attracted more people and activity. His guidelines for successful plazas emphasized designing spaces that integrate with surrounding streets, include amenities that draw people, and allow for a variety of activities.

1. The Social Life
of Small
Urban Spaces
M O H D D A N I S H
M.Arch 1st sem (Urban regeneration)
J a m i a m i l l i a i s l a m i a
By William H.Whyte

2. STREET LIFE PROJECT
started in 1970 by William “Holy” Whtye for
study of small urban spaces to find why some
urban spaces work and why others not.
 Regularity of chance meetings
 Street conferences
 Behaviors of people on streets
STUDY
• City spaces
• Talking with people
• Making notes
• Photography
• Film making
• Measuring heights of benches and ledges
• Writing articles
• Discovering public place that people use and don’t use & why.

3. Manhattan, New York
• Happiness space
• Small urban space
• Ledge small parks
• Paley park
• Greenacre park
• Farragut circle
• Dupont circle
• Ledges along the streest and fountains
‘W O R K I N G
and
DON’T W O R K I N G S P A C E S ’
WHAT
give LIFE
KILLS a S P A C E ?
OR

4. WHAT
DRAWS PEOPLE
KEEP THEM OUT?
OR
Spaces designed to keep out
U N D E S I R A B L E S
and
attract people FREE OF PROBLEMS.

5. IMPORTANT ELEMENTS:
• Sun
• Trees
• Water
• food
• Most of al seats
SMALL spaces can make LARGE IMPACT on
quality of lives to see if we can take advantage
of small urban spaces if we design new one
well & fix the existing one.

6. Block on 101st street in east
Harlem
Children play on streets
with their mother looking at
them from stoops and fire
escapes, visual connection
makes them feel safer
CITY SPACES
• urban crowding
• Lack of crowding
• High density
• Sheered space empty
• Heading-street as a play area

7. SEAGRAM BUILDING
77 water street (swinger plaza)
talking
“NOTHING
talk”

8. Key factors defining plaza:
• Surrounding enclosure
• Shape of plaza
• Amount of space
• Sittable space People tend to sit where there
are places to sit.
Seating not materially
comfortable
but SOCIALLY.
C H O I C E S … . .
• In front or back or to the
side
• In the sun or shade
• In groups or alone
Giving choices to sit making flat surfaces do double
duty as table tops or seats

9. LUDWIG MIES VAN DER ROHE
Making sitting spaces
giving ledges in plaza
valued simplicity and
was a success unlike
of aesthetics and
formal sittings.
• Steps were made easy to sit on
• 600 ft of ledge sittable without a bench on it.
• 17 inches height is good to sit on which goes upto 3 ft.

10. SITTING SPACE
• Single seating 17”
• Back to back 36” is comfortable sitting.
• Benches are not good for sitting sometimes old
style park bench may work
• Movable chairs are most successful it gives
user flexibility of movement and direction.
h o w m u c h ?
More though to probable
pedestrian flows placement of
steps trees behind baffles, sun
traps & even waste baskets
6 to 10 % of the total
open space should be given for
sitting.

11. Bryant Park Renovations
Movable chairs permit many sitting opportunities to facilitate
differing activities

12. SEAGRAM PLAZA
• People sitting where there was sun
• Southern exposure is of critical importance
PA L E Y PA R K
Sun light was curtailed but loss was a negotiable
it sustained without it.
• Quality of experience
• Which can be much greater when there is sun.
SUN
+
WIND
+
TREES
+
WATERChoices…
Sun,
shade or
In-between

13. PA L E Y PA R K
 Designed by Zion &
Breen on the site of
the former Stork
Club (just off 5th
Avenue at 53rd
Street

14. Bryant Park
Note the high density of users on a warm summer day

15. S o l u t i o n s
• acquiring air rights, lowering height of building
on southern edge to open up to sun light
• Rights have more leverage
• Sell rights to cast minimum shadow to open
spaces
• Permitting other bulding to rise higher than
normal height.
• Borrow sun with help of reflection usng glas
and stainless stel in buildings
• As a result spaces became alive where there
was no light before.
Example : glaze plaza

16. Wind
• Plaza works efficiently in absence of wind.
GREENACRE PARK
• Three side enclosed one side open
• Extreme cold weather area face lack of feet in plazas
due to wind flowing through it.
• But greenacre sustain with sun and blocking the wind
with appropriate orientation of buildings around.
O N E B A N K P L A Z A , S E A T T L E ,
C H I C A G O
• Windiest place not because of local wind but of draft
down the side of giant John Hancock and Sears tower

17. TREES
A treet for every 25 mtr walk 3.5” dia.
• An open space of 5000 feet, a
minimum of 6 trees.
• People feel cuddled, protected very
much as they do under awnings of a
street café.
• Overlapping trees provide
combination of shade and sunlight.
C O M B I N E trees
and
sitting spaces

18. WAT E R
• Water falls
• Water walls
• Rapid sluiceway
• Tranquil pools
• Water tunnels
• Meandering brooks
• Fountain of all kinds
 Lacking access
 Look & feel it
 Splash your hand deep feet.
 Swimming
Away from water
fencing water
fountain is it a
SOLUTION?
PALEY PARK WATERFALL
• Bangs up street noise
• Make conversation segregated
• No more congenial.

19. F O O D
Food vendors always put the space
to live accumulating people all
around and inviting more people.
• Cover pedestrian traffic
Seed a place
Put
FOOD A C T I V I T Y
ROCK FELLER PLAZA
15 vendors
• Vendors became caterer of
plaza activity
• City’s outdoor life
• Fill a void, remove them life
of space goes with them
• Purveying food outdoor but
eating as well .
REGENERATION OF
ANDREW PLAZA
PALEY AND
GREENACRE PARK
Street we see a big party
Food to repeat draw
people & they draw more
people
20%
to food activities

20. S T R E E T S
Good plaza starts with street corner
• Traffic between plaza and steert
• Retailing stores, windows with display
signs to attract your attention , doorways
people going in and out.
Relationship to streets
is
I N T E G R A L
• 49TH STREET THE AVENUE OF
AMERICA Along side of Mc Graw Hill building.
• Street along PALEY PARK integrated so well
virtually a part of it.
success
o BRYANT PARK cut from the streets by
WALLS
• Dangerous, hub of dope dealers & muggers
• Fence & shrubbery.
o KANSAS HIGH central park has WALLS people
even don’t realise if its there or not.
o ROCKFELLER PLAZA is sunken “ a stage
without theatre”
failure

21. Characteristics of best used plazas:
 higher proportion of groups rather than
solitary individuals
 Greater proportion of female users
 Variability over day, week, season
”People are most likely to sit where there are
places to sit”

22. Design Criteria for Plazas
 Movable chairs (benches are less desirable)
 Seating area should be approximately 10% of
the total open space
 Protection from sun, wind and noise (use
trees and water)
 Availability of food (snack bars, vendors,
tables & chairs)
 Related to the street, near the action

23. Design Criteria for Plazas:
 “Triangulation: presence of
people or things that induce
strangers to talk with each
other
 Surveillance comes from
vendors, newsstands,
building employees.
 Dealing with “undesirables”:
make the area appeal to
anyone

24. Movies, ice skating, & a cafe draw people into the park

25. Design Criteria for Indoor Spaces
(e.g., atria, galleries, courtyards, arcades,
concourses, indoor plazas)
 Seating
 Food
 Retail stores
 Public toilets
 Presence

26. THANK YOU….