David Sim • Soft City: Building Density for Everyday Life

Summary

David Sim argues that cities should be designed around the quality of everyday life, not just buildings, infrastructure, or impressive skylines. In his use of the term, a “soft city” makes it easier for people to connect with one another, with nature, and with their surroundings. The design can be simple and practical: a small public space, a safe street, a place to sit in the sun, or a convenient route to a local shop.

Main ideas

• Everyday experience is the foundation of good urbanism. A city does not need to be spectacular to improve people’s lives. Much of a city’s value is experienced through ordinary routines: walking, shopping, meeting neighbors, and spending time outdoors.
• People make a city “soft.” Although cities are built from hard materials such as concrete and glass, their character comes from how people use shared spaces and feel in them.
• Human-scale public spaces support health and social connection. Parks, streets, courtyards, and waterfronts can encourage movement, outdoor activity, casual encounters, and a sense of belonging. Shared public spaces can also support inclusion and democracy by bringing different people together.
• Density works best when paired with diversity and proximity. Density alone—for example, putting many people in towers—does not ensure that daily needs are nearby. A mix of homes, shops, services, and public spaces can make neighborhoods more useful and convenient.
• Time is a key measure of urban quality. Small improvements to walking, cycling, and transit can save people time and give them more freedom in their daily lives.
• Cities can adapt to climate and weather through design. Buildings, trees, shade, courtyards, balconies, and public spaces can create more comfortable local conditions and help neighborhoods cope with heat or flooding.

Design approaches and examples

1. Make daily life local

• Mix housing with useful destinations such as shops, pharmacies, workplaces, and services.
• Build enclosed or semi-enclosed courtyards that provide quieter, sheltered shared spaces within dense neighborhoods. These can give children room to play, offer neighbors a place to meet, and foster a sense of shared identity. Trees and enclosed spaces can also moderate temperature and noise.
• Design different floors of a building for different purposes rather than treating every level alike:
  • Ground floors can accommodate shops, services, or homes with their own entrances.
  • A small buffer, such as a garden or edge zone, can make ground-floor homes feel more private and usable.
  • Upper floors can be adapted to different purposes and needs.
• Create small, visible public spaces where people feel comfortable spending time and can keep an eye on children or recognize their neighbors.

2. Make movement convenient and sociable

• Design streets so walking routes are direct and continuous. For example, carrying the sidewalk surface across a side street signals that pedestrians can continue along their route.
• Pay attention to small time savings: easier crossings and more direct routes can make everyday trips quicker and help children travel more independently.
• Make walking and cycling convenient enough to be part of daily life, rather than treating exercise as something that must happen separately.
• Recognize that cycling can support local commerce: cyclists can stop easily at shops and stay closely connected to street life.
• Design buses and trams as part of the public realm. Street-level travel allows passengers to remain connected to activity and changing conditions around them.
• Plan transportation as a whole journey—from a home’s window and entrance to the sidewalk, local shops, and transit stop—not just as a connection between distant destinations.

3. Design for weather and climate

• Use building form, walls, trees, and shade to create comfortable local microclimates.
• Make outdoor spaces usable in different seasons with features such as seating beside sunny walls, arcades, balconies, and shaded areas.
• Use balconies and thresholds to connect homes to the street and give residents outdoor space, even in small apartments.
• Consider simple, adaptable measures such as shutters and louvers to manage heat and sunlight.
• Incorporate greenery to provide shade and help cool buildings and streets.
• Design some public spaces to temporarily hold rainwater. Sim describes Copenhagen’s floodable green spaces as an alternative to relying only on large underground infrastructure. They can also make neighborhoods greener, quieter, and cooler.
• Make water accessible where appropriate. Simple steps and handrails can help people enter and exit rivers or harbors safely, making the water part of everyday city life.

Practical principles

Sim emphasizes five principles:

• Think smaller: Start with neighborhood-scale improvements rather than assuming every solution must be a major project.
• Think lower: Consider human-scale buildings and public spaces, not only the skyline.
• Think slower: Value the whole daily journey and the experience along the way, not just the fastest trip from A to B.
• Think simpler: Use straightforward interventions, such as a bench, balcony, courtyard, or accessible waterfront.
• Think softer: Design places that support comfort, trust, sociability, and connection.

Sim’s broader lesson is that many urban challenges—including poor health, loneliness, traffic, and climate impacts—can be addressed in part through the everyday design of streets, buildings, and shared spaces.

Speakers and sources mentioned

Speakers

• David Sim — Architect and author of Soft City, presenting the main ideas.
• Gil Penalosa — Host of A Walk in the Park with Gil, introducing Sim and the webinar.

Other references cited

• Jan Gehl — Described by Sim as a humanistic-planning mentor and former colleague.
• Swedish research — Mentioned in connection with nature, views of trees, and recovery in hospitals; no specific study is identified.
• BBC — A report on walking and its potential health benefits is referenced.
• The Guardian — Articles about walking and breast-cancer risk, and socialization in relation to Alzheimer’s disease, are referenced.
• City examples discussed: Malmö, Copenhagen, Lund, Stockholm, Bern, Brisbane, Barcelona, São Paulo, Mexico City, Tokyo, Boston, Düsseldorf, Edinburgh, Melbourne, London, Santa Monica, and Hamburg.