We often see the city “from above.” From maps, plans, screens… And then from within life itself: from behind the steering wheel, from the middle of the sidewalk, from an adult’s eye level. Everything has a name, a measurement, an explanation. But the truth is this: the city is understood through empathy. And a child’s body speaks an entirely different language inside it.
The first time I truly noticed this, I wasn’t preparing a presentation, and I wasn’t writing a thesis. I was walking with my son. My hand was holding his; I’m used to walking fast, he isn’t. I decide quickly, saying “we’ll go this way,” but he sees everything, one by one. While I was complaining about my son’s slowness as I grabbed his arm and pulled him along, his mother warned me. So I started watching him. His eyes catch on the height of a single curb stone. On a surface where the pavement has been torn up, he points at a puddle and says, “Dad, there’s a pool in front of us.” He hides behind the trunk of a tree. He listens carefully to the sound the wind makes in the branches. What is ordinary to me becomes, for him, sometimes a small adventure, sometimes a small fear.
“95 cm” stops being just a number for me here. It becomes the height from which a child looks at the world… around waist level. And when you look from there, the city changes all at once. What we call “narrow” can feel too wide and too exposed to them. What we call a “safe” sidewalk can make them feel as if they are walking on the roadway. What we call a “connector road” can feel like a river that is hard to cross. (See: Urban95)
The way children experience the city is fundamentally different from the way adults do; at the center of this difference lies a strong drive to explore. A child approaches first, touches, tries; they often learn the boundary not from a warning sign, but from lived experience. For this reason, in places where children spend time, safety should not be treated as a technical measure added later, but as a basic quality the space must carry from the very beginning. Because for a child, an unsafe detail a slippery surface, a dark corner, a loose part does not only create physical risk; it also interrupts curiosity and teaches withdrawal. Seen from 95 cm, the city stops being an open field for exploration and turns into a sequence of obstacles that must be crossed carefully. That is why, in child-oriented spaces, safety should not be read as the opposite of freedom; on the contrary, it should be read as a precondition for exploration and for participation in public life.
You come to realize something: a child reads the city not only with “logic,” but also with the senses. Through sound, vibration, light, slipperiness, smell, hardness… For example, when I cross a road, I mostly check whether traffic is flowing. My son sometimes says, “The cars are very angry.” It’s not a technical sentence, but it’s accurate. Because in his body, when speed and noise come together, they feel “angry.” In some places the light glares into his eyes; in others the wind hits like a slap. Especially in winter: the ground hardens, corners turn to ice, pits where water collects and freezes overnight… Things that don’t slow an adult down can cut off a child’s courage.
And there’s something else: we adults usually assume the city is something “finished.” A child doesn’t. For a child, a wall is not a boundary; it is the idea of climbing. A puddle is not a problem; it is an experiment. Curb stones are not a line; they are a balancing game. A child keeps testing the possibilities inside the city. Maybe that’s why, when you walk with a child, something in you feels unsettled. The city, on one hand, is alive, inviting, calling you in; on the other hand, it is strangely hard, constantly saying, “Don’t touch.”
In the end, it always comes back to the same question: For whom do we consider the city “normal”? Whose walking speed is normal? Whose stride length is normal? Whose field of view is normal? In plans, projects, and even in our everyday decisions, we often take our own body as the measure. And then we create a separate corner for children and soothe our conscience: “At least there’s a playground…” But the issue is not only the playground. It’s the sidewalk a child walks along during the day, the corner they turn, the bus stop they wait at, the space in front of the school, the route to the grocery store… That’s where the real stage of life is.
As I write this, one image keeps returning to my mind: we are waiting at a crosswalk. I check the road almost automatically, acting as if to say, “Okay, go.” My son, before anything else, looks for eye contact. He looks at the driver, trying to understand whether the driver has noticed him. For a child, safety is sometimes not in the sign on the pole, but in being seen. In that quiet message of “I noticed you.” It’s that simple, that human.
So are we going to talk about this 95 cm issue as if it were only a slogan? I don’t really have the heart for that. Because out in the field, you see something very clearly: sometimes it’s not the big projects, but the small adjustments that save lives. The gap in a drainage grate, the height of a curb, the sightline at a corner, the position of a sign… These get dismissed as “details,” but in a child’s walk they can become a massive obstacle.
When a designer looks “from below” at what they say, “I drew this”… some things start to feel unnecessarily harsh. Some forms look unnecessarily large. Some solutions, while trying to be “safe,” have turned into something intimidating. The adult mind sometimes loves big gestures: wide openings, hard edges, tall elements… A child, however, wants not a grand spectacle, but consistent small continuities. A sidewalk that keeps the same width, a corner that doesn’t surprise you, lighting that repeats in a predictable rhythm, a surface that isn’t slippery… And that repetition is not boredom, as we often assume. In a child’s language, it means “being able to predict.” And being able to predict means safety.
At this point, an objection usually appears: “If we design everything for children, won’t it feel too tight for adults?” I understand that, because the city is already a place where interests collide. But there is a simple reality: most of the things you improve for a child also benefit the adult. Calmer traffic, crossings that are easier to read, more shade, seating that is easier to reach, less noise… None of these diminish anyone. On the contrary, they make the city a little more livable. When you make room for the most fragile, everyone gets to breathe. It almost feels like a general rule of life.
When you talk with a child, you start to understand what we call “participation” in a different way. Showing a plan to a child and asking, “Do you like it?” is little more than a pointless effort, or a kind of performative gesture. But when you ask, “Where do you run on the way to school?”, “What scares you in the city?”, “When you stand next to this bench, what do you feel like doing?”, suddenly you get very clear answers. A child doesn’t describe space as a “drawing,” but as a “stage.” On that stage, where do they speed up, where do they hesitate, where does it turn into play… That is the real information.
All of this, for me, keeps circling back to a phrase I love in landscape architecture: “reading the site.” In this piece, I’m suggesting we do that reading a little lower, a little slower, and a little more from the heart. When you look from 95 cm, the city suddenly stops being only a child’s issue; it becomes an issue for all of us. Because a city truly grows when it makes room for its smallest user. And by growth, I don’t mean skyscrapers; I mean becoming finer, softer, more attentive… In a way, a city’s maturity shows itself here.
