{"id":71654,"date":"2025-12-28T02:04:45","date_gmt":"2025-12-27T23:04:45","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.peyzax.com\/reading-the-city-from-95-cm\/"},"modified":"2026-02-12T10:35:49","modified_gmt":"2026-02-12T07:35:49","slug":"reading-the-city-from-95-cm","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.peyzax.com\/en\/reading-the-city-from-95-cm\/","title":{"rendered":"Reading the City from 95 cm"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

We often see the city \u201cfrom above.\u201d From maps, plans, screens\u2026 And then from within life itself: from behind the steering wheel, from the middle of the sidewalk, from an adult\u2019s eye level. Everything has a name, a measurement, an explanation. But the truth is this: the city is understood through empathy. And a child\u2019s body speaks an entirely different language inside it.<\/p>\n\n

The first time I truly noticed this, I wasn\u2019t preparing a presentation, and I wasn\u2019t writing a thesis. I was walking with my son. My hand was holding his; I\u2019m used to walking fast, he isn\u2019t. I decide quickly, saying \u201cwe\u2019ll go this way,\u201d but he sees everything, one by one. While I was complaining about my son\u2019s slowness as I grabbed his arm and pulled him along, his mother warned me. \n \nSo 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, \u201cDad, there\u2019s a pool in front of us.\u201d 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.<\/p>\n\n

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\u201c95 cm\u201d stops being just a number for me here. It becomes the height from which a child looks at the world\u2026 around waist level. And when you look from there, the city changes all at once. What we call \u201cnarrow\u201d can feel too wide and too exposed to them. What we call a \u201csafe\u201d sidewalk can make them feel as if they are walking on the roadway. What we call a \u201cconnector road\u201d can feel like a river that is hard to cross. (See: Urban95<\/a>)<\/p>\n\n

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. \n \nSeen 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.<\/p>\n\n

You come to realize something: a child reads the city not only with \u201clogic,\u201d but also with the senses. Through sound, vibration, light, slipperiness, smell, hardness\u2026 For example, when I cross a road, I mostly check whether traffic is flowing. My son sometimes says, \u201cThe cars are very angry.\u201d It\u2019s not a technical sentence, but it\u2019s accurate. Because in his body, when speed and noise come together, they feel \u201cangry.\u201d \n \nIn 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\u2026 Things that don\u2019t slow an adult down can cut off a child\u2019s courage.<\/p>\n\n

And there\u2019s something else: we adults usually assume the city is something \u201cfinished.\u201d A child doesn\u2019t. 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. \n \nMaybe that\u2019s 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, \u201cDon\u2019t touch.\u201d<\/p>\n\n

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In the end, it always comes back to the same question: For whom do we consider the city \u201cnormal\u201d? 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: \u201cAt least there\u2019s a playground\u2026\u201d \n \nBut the issue is not only the playground<\/a>. It\u2019s 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\u2026 That\u2019s where the real stage of life is.<\/p>\n\n

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, \u201cOkay, go.\u201d My son, before anything else, looks for eye contact. He looks at the driver, trying to understand whether the driver has noticed him. \n \nFor a child, safety is sometimes not in the sign on the pole, but in being seen. In that quiet message of \u201cI noticed you.\u201d It\u2019s that simple, that human.<\/p>\n\n

So are we going to talk about this 95 cm issue as if it were only a slogan? I don\u2019t really have the heart for that. Because out in the field, you see something very clearly: sometimes it\u2019s 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\u2026 These get dismissed as \u201cdetails,\u201d but in a child\u2019s walk they can become a massive obstacle.<\/p>\n\n

When a designer looks \u201cfrom below\u201d at what they say, \u201cI drew this\u201d\u2026 some things start to feel unnecessarily harsh. Some forms look unnecessarily large. Some solutions, while trying to be \u201csafe,\u201d have turned into something intimidating. The adult mind sometimes loves big gestures: wide openings, hard edges, tall elements\u2026 A child, however, wants not a grand spectacle, but consistent small continuities. A sidewalk that keeps the same width, a corner that doesn\u2019t surprise you, lighting that repeats in a predictable rhythm, a surface that isn\u2019t slippery\u2026 \n \nAnd that repetition is not boredom, as we often assume. In a child\u2019s language, it means \u201cbeing able to predict.\u201d And being able to predict means safety.<\/p>\n\n

At this point, an objection usually appears: \u201cIf we design everything for children, won\u2019t it feel too tight for adults?\u201d 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\u2026 None of these diminish anyone. On the contrary, they make the city a little more livable. \n \nWhen you make room for the most fragile, everyone gets to breathe.<\/strong> It almost feels like a general rule of life.<\/p>\n\n

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When you talk with a child, you start to understand what we call \u201cparticipation\u201d in a different way. Showing a plan to a child and asking, \u201cDo you like it?\u201d is little more than a pointless effort, or a kind of performative gesture. But when you ask, \u201cWhere do you run on the way to school?\u201d, \u201cWhat scares you in the city?\u201d, \u201cWhen you stand next to this bench, what do you feel like doing?\u201d, suddenly you get very clear answers. \n \nA child doesn\u2019t describe space as a \u201cdrawing,\u201d but as a \u201cstage.\u201d On that stage, where do they speed up, where do they hesitate, where does it turn into play\u2026 That is the real information.<\/p>\n\n

All of this, for me, keeps circling back to a phrase I love in landscape architecture: \u201creading the site.\u201d In this piece, I\u2019m suggesting we do that reading a little lower, a little slower, and a little more from the heart. \n \nWhen you look from 95 cm, the city suddenly stops being only a child\u2019s 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\u2019t mean skyscrapers; I mean becoming finer, softer, more attentive\u2026 In a way, a city\u2019s maturity shows itself here. \n<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

We often see the city \u201cfrom above.\u201d From maps, plans, screens\u2026 And then from within life itself: from behind the steering wheel, from the middle...<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":71244,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_wp_rev_ctl_limit":""},"categories":[5310,4975,4948],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-71654","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-child","category-column-articles","category-editors-pick"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.peyzax.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/71654","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.peyzax.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.peyzax.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.peyzax.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.peyzax.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=71654"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.peyzax.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/71654\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.peyzax.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/71244"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.peyzax.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=71654"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.peyzax.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=71654"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.peyzax.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=71654"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}