David Sim

David Sim is an urbanist and an optimist. He is creative problem-solver who believes passionately in the potential of people and their places. Whether it’s a sprawling metropolis or an isolated village, a plan or a process, David uses his detective-like skills to get to the core of the challenge and his seemingly endless artistic energy to find appropriate solutions. A childhood playing only with Lego gave David notions of architecture and Danish-ness. He first heard Jan Gehl’s lectures as a 19-year-old architecture student at Edinburgh College of Art in his native Scotland, an experience that changed his life, taking him to Scandinavia and a lifetime of service, devoted to making better places for people. Balancing his own considerable personal know-how with a reverence for the professional and personal experience of others, David’s main activities include developing Masterplanning Frameworks and urban design, applying Jan Gehl’s theories to all scales of projects on all five continents. David’s recent work includes the Central City Recovery Plan for Christchurch, New Zealand after the devastating earthquake of 2011 and the plan for An Camas Mòr in the Scottish Highlands, the first new town to be given planning permission in a national park. Comfortably switching languages mid-sentence, David is natural communicator, eager to share his knowledge with others. He has taught at architecture and design schools all over the world. His work changing the way architecture is taught at Lund University in Sweden led to a number of awards and distinctions. David Sim is Creative Director at Gehl based in Copenhagen.