Plaça de la Mercè | Barcelona (Spain)
“Many of our modern public squares, though intended as lively plazas, are in fact deserted and dead”.
Christopher Alexander (1977)
Do you consider the Plaça de la Mercè in Barcelona as a lively plaza? Of course, there are times when there are a lot of people here. There are also many moments when it is as quiet as in this photo.
In A Pattern Language (1977) Alexander presents a practical language for the build environment. Each element of this language – the patterns – describes a problem which occurs repeatedly. Afterwards the core of the solution is presented.
In Pedestrian Density (pattern number 123) Alexander reveals the relationship between the number of pedestrians, the size of the area and a subjective estimate of the extent to which the area is alive.
A place seems to be dead and deserted when it has more than about 300 square feet (about 90 square meters) per person. When designing a place where crowds are drawn together, such as urban squares, it is recommended to estimate the mean number of people in that place at any given moment.