This article was written for CityChangers.org by Gosia Grzesikowska, an urban designer and architect at Gehl, and the founder of Urban Photo Atlas, a professional reference archive documenting everyday urban life across cities worldwide. With specific reference to Bishkek, Kyrgyzstan, Gosia explains how visual references of cities in diverse global regions provide designers with a window into the kinds of everyday – rather than the extraordinary – urbanism that make cities attractive and liveable.
Public life in Bishkek, Kyrgyzstan, rarely features in international urban discussions. When cities are used as references, attention tends to concentrate on Western Europe and North America, where public space is often framed through iconic projects and highly visible design interventions.
Bishkek’s absence is not a reflection of poor urban quality, but of what tends to be documented and circulated as reference material in professional urban discourse.
One place that challenges this absence is Erkindik Boulevard. Giving me a guided tour of her home city, a friend of mine explained that this translates into English as “freedom” and is symbolic of Kyrgyzstan’s return to independence after the fall of the Soviet Union.
Erkindik Boulevard is a tree-lined public space with a clear spatial structure and designated areas for everyday activities, including seating and chess tables. It is intentionally designed, yet deliberately understated.
Designed for Use, Not Display
Bishkek is a densely populated city and in recent years it has experienced extreme and even deadly levels of heat in summer. At almost any time of day, Erkindik Boulevard is active because the space supports a wide range of everyday activities in a temperate refuge:
- older residents gathering around chess tables or stopping to rest on a bench
- students meeting between classes
- families walking with children and strollers
- runners and joggers passing through as part of their daily routines
- friends stopping briefly to talk and people-watch before moving on
- citizens of all kinds enjoying pop-up events
The success of the boulevard lies in how design supports these routines without over-directing them. Paths, seating, and activity zones are clearly defined, yet flexible enough to accommodate informal use.
Everyday Urbanism as a Design Outcome
Erkindik Boulevard demonstrates an approach to public space grounded in everyday life. Rather than relying on novelty or visual statement, the design prioritises comfort, legibility, shade, and continuity.
In many contemporary projects, public space is expected to perform symbolically — to represent identity, progress, or innovation. In Bishkek, the ambition is quieter: to create a place that people return to consistently, day after day, year after year.
Why These Spaces Are Rarely Used as References
In planning and design practice, visual references strongly influence early decisions. Yet many available references focus on formal expression rather than everyday performance.
Through my work as an urban designer, I repeatedly encountered a lack of photographic material showing how designed public spaces function in ordinary conditions — particularly outside Western Europe and North America. Well-used but non-iconic spaces are rarely documented, licensed, and shared as professional reference.
This gap became the starting point for Urban Photo Atlas.
Photographing Use as Design Evidence
Urban Photo Atlas was established as an independent photographic archive developed as a professional reference library for architects, urban designers, planners, and institutions. Launched in 2025, it already features examples from cities on different continents, as wide-ranging as Muscat, Oman; Malmö, Sweden; Kota Kinabalu, Malaysia; Łódź, Poland; and Olot, Spain.
The Bishkek series focuses on use: who is present, how long people stay, how activities overlap, and how specific design elements — such as seating and chess tables — support social interaction. Exactly the kind of visual references that community-centric designers need access to.
Image credit: Urban Photo Atlas / Gosia Grzesikowska
Together, the images function as design evidence. They are intended to support professional analysis, teaching, and early-stage design development by documenting how restrained spatial decisions sustain everyday public life over time.
Why Bishkek Matters
Bishkek is not presented as a model to replicate. Instead, it expands the geography of urban reference. It shows that valuable design knowledge exists beyond the cities that are most often cited in conferences, publications, and case studies.
For planners, designers, and researchers, spaces like Erkindik Boulevard offer grounded reference material demonstrating how public space can support everyday use without becoming visually dominant or formally exceptional.
Urban Photo Atlas as a Professional Resource
Urban Photo Atlas continues to grow as additional cities are documented. All images are original, rights-cleared, and licensed for professional use, allowing them to be integrated into design documents, research publications, teaching material, and institutional presentations.
Together, the collections form a structured visual archive of everyday urban life, designed for direct use in professional workflows. In future, I hope that this kind of reference will be ingrained in training for aspiring architects and urban designers, leading to more inclusive and reflective practices from the beginning.
By including cities such as Bishkek, the archive supports more inclusive and better-informed urban practice — grounded in observation, evidence, and everyday use.
The full Bishkek series and other city collections can be viewed at urbanphotoatlas.com