Bo Grönlund, associate prof. bo.gronlund@karch.dk
The Royal Danish Academy of Fin Arts, School of Architecture
Institute for Planning
Philip de Langes Allé 10, DK 1435 Copenhagen, Denmark
Mobile +45 40525181

Short Biography:
Bo Grönlund has been with The Royal Danish Academy of Fin Arts, School of Architecture since 1971. He has an architectural degree from Chalmers University and a research education from Nordplan in Stockholm. On the side Bo has been working for planning consultancy firms with master planning and economic planning, with the Nordic Counsel of Ministers on urban studies, and with Danish Standards and others on crime prevention through urban design.
For 15 years he taught Urban Design together with Jan Gehl, and in later years the focus has been on urban planning together with Jens Kvorning in the Centre for Urbanism, e.g. coordination of the masters program on Strategic Urban Planning.
An overview of Bo’s works can be found in the following places:
Own homepage http://bo.gronlund.homepage.dk
READ http://www.re-ad.dk/research/groenlund_bo(2046)/
Centre for Urbanism: http://www.karch.dk/cbp/Menu/Kort+om+Centret

Abstract:
According to International Federation of Housing and Planning the majority of the population of the planet are now urban. That definition of the urban, however, is based on zombie categories, to speak as Ulrich Beck. Urbanization and urban areas as we normally understand them are concepts of 'the first modernity'. Nowadays, in 'the second modernity', we have instead to ask: where in the city do you really find urbanity? A large part of what statistically is called urban areas lack urban quality and visible urban life. In the space syntax approach urbanity is basically understood as co-presence of people in streets and squares and movement economy. About 18 years ago, Bill Hiller gave a definition of urbanity as 'the virtual community' – the ‘yet to become’ sociality of strangers sharing in the streets. The broader field of Urban Design considers a large range of urban and design issues, and adds more complexity to the question of urbanity.  Most urban design ‘theory’ is basically normative though and non-coherent from a theoretical point of view. Henri Lefebvre and Richard Sennett take on some more fundamental issues with their focus on the importance of difference, but the implications for design is far from clear.  My short presentation will comment on this and then try to add to the notion of urbanity in two ways: First by proposing a three level model for co-presence, second by proposing a fourfold table of some empirically observable urbanity including not only aspects related to co-presence of people but also some aspects concerning human relations to artefacts.