Toni Sachs Pfeiffer: 1942 - 2005

Toni Sachs Pfeiffer was one of the first people I met when I started working at Project for Public Spaces in 1975. I immediately realized she was one of those unique individuals with a gift for knowing something about almost everything. This included traveling expertise, culinary skills, real estate savvy, music, filmmaking, photography and sociological analysis of public spaces. And that just scrapes the surface of her knowledge. Here are a few of the valuable life-long lessons I learned from her:

• When doing observations of public spaces, wear dark clothing so that you blend into the background and don't interrupt the flow of the activity you are observing
• You can judge the quality of an unopened oyster by feeling its weight in the palm of your hand
• Travel to Europe in the morning rather than the evening to avoid jet lag
• People in public spaces always need something to stand next to - they feel uncomfortable standing in the middle of a space
• Never assume that the intended function of a place is what the place is actually used for, always look deeper at how people adapt it as their own

Toni was from Scarsdale, New York and worked in both New York and London as an independent documentary filmmaker. In the mid-1970s she married Ulrich Pfeiffer and moved with him to Germany, where, after learning German, she began a new chapter in her career. She conducted an analysis of train stations in Munich, Frankfurt, Hamburg, Essen and Cologne for the National German Railroad, using time lapse film and other photographic and sociological techniques to study passengers' waiting behavior, pedestrian circulation patterns, sources of conflict, and the use of various spaces by groups as compared to individuals. From this groundbreaking work, she began to study public spaces in the centers of several large cities including Munich, Frankfurt, Düsseldorf, and the Kreutzberg area of Berlin. She became well known in Europe as an expert on public spaces, and during the 1990s was a development consultant for the rebuilding of public spaces in Berlin.

After contributing a lifetime of work to making cities more livable and understandable, Toni died a year ago on January 6, 2005. We present here some excerpts from her groundbreaking work, The City Lived, in honor of her memory.

- Kathy Madden

About "The City Lived"

The City Lived was an exhibition prepared by Toni Sachs Pfeiffer about everyday life in Berlin. Through this exhibit, Toni showed why "designed space" is not always usable space. As she wrote in the exhibit:

"The user's idea of comfort, access, and usability itself is often not reflected in modern design. As a result, for instance, benches tend to be in the wrong place, at the wrong distance from each other, and have the wrong shape or size. The users of built space respond by reshaping their environment, using steps or fences as seating, for instance. When the designed environment does not meet user needs, it is restructured either through improvised use or misuse. So the public spaces we construct are as much social creations as designed ones."

The exhibition was designed so that both planners and users could take "another look" at the way in which the built environment is actually used. It was Toni's intention for those experiences of the urban environment that have remained subconscious so long to be re-experienced and perceived anew, allowing us to establish a stronger basis for user-oriented public space planning.

The material used in this exhibition was collected through a number of long-range studies of the behavior and use of public open space. In all of these studies thousands of pictures, as well as Super-8-mm time-lapse films were taken and analyzed before interviews were initiated, based on the photographic analysis. Initial studies primarily dealt with the "repair" of problem areas and the redesign of existing space.

The following are some highlights from the exhibit:

Spheres of Action and the Perceived Neighborhood

Planning which is oriented to user patterns must first determine what most users perceive as their fundamental spheres of action. That part of the residential environment which the individual resident feels is accessible, which he actually uses and identifies as his "perceived neighborhood" is appreciably smaller than has been assumed in the past...

The majority of inner-city residents consider their "perceived neighborhood" to be within a distance of at most 150 meters (492.13 feet) from their home. For many, the "perceived area" is bounded by a main street, the edge of a block or larger park. This kind of clear boundary allows the resident, to identify himself with specific areas, which he feels are "familiar." For many, the next block is "another world."

The "immediate home area" (about 20 meters from home/65 feet) is the most important and heavily used of the residential spheres of action.

For most residents, the most important aspect of the "immediate home area" is the personal territory, "my place." The residents mark their "place" with chairs, bicycles, jackets which they leave often unguarded, in the certain knowledge that their "place" is secure. The "immediate home area" is the heart of the "perceived neighborhood."

Multifunctional Design and Improvisation

Because we seldom find in a planned environment what is required to make it "livable," we improvise livable environments. In this way street furniture and design elements such as fences, flower beds, waste baskets and signs are used in other ways than they were originally planned...

A good example of modified use can be seen in the use of garbage cans. Garbage disposal areas are often multifunctional areas, where the residents of a building or housing project meet each other, often near entrance ways. Both children and adults spend time here regularly. In entrance areas one has good sense of "what's going on" with those with whom one shares the residential environment.

Often in new housing projects garbage disposal areas are particularly defined through design elements. These areas are intensively used by children as playgrounds. Many children find this area to be the "best" part of their residential environment. It is not "garbage" itself that children and adults find interesting. They spend time near garbage disposal areas because they are multifunctional areas which allow different forms of use. Here different user groups meet each other at different times of day, and can use these areas in ways which are not determined through functional assignment.

Identification and Responsibility

Those spaces which are intensely used are also spaces which people care for and take care of. Identification is especially important in the residential environment. Here, "at home," we can show who we are, what we are, what we care for.

One of the strongest user needs is the need for identification with used space. In all observed residential environments, those spaces with which residents identify themselves strongly are cared for, cleaned and beautified. Flowers and flower pots are placed before the door. In interior block spaces, tables and chairs are set out and used together with neighbors. The process of identification with the residential environment leads to feelings of responsibility for that environment and to those with whom it is shared.

Our ability to adapt, shape and where necessary change environments to meet our own real needs in space appears to be one of the most important factors of use and identification. Through care of the residential environment, its beautification, the resident not only influences his environment, but those with whom he shares the environment as well, and is in turn influenced by it. In this way, for example, children learn from adults how to care for and beautify their surroundings. Children need space in which they can practice care and beautification. Where space for such activities is not available, residents cannot develop a sense of responsibility for their immediate environment.

Spatial Subdivision and Variety of Use

The extent of the ability of public open space to offer highly differentiated spatial subdivisions seems to be the measure of successful urban design. Conflict and insecurity as well as distortion of social perception result, however, when spatial subdivisions are inadequately defined.

It is only through the recognition of these and similar socio-spatial factors that we can establish criteria through which shared public open space can satisfy the complex chain of social/spatial needs and expectations of the majority of urban residents, and create a highly differentiated socio-spatial environment in which contact does not create conflict and in which public open space, independent of size, can house the complex interchange implicit in truly multifunctional interaction. In this way the "City Lived" may become a "livable" City.