the adg rest area

Scottish Elections and the Cappuccino Police

This photo shows one of the UK's few remaining police boxes (famous today due to Doctor Who) - this one is in Buchanan Street in Glasgow and has been converted into a coffee stall.

I thought this image described two things about contemporary Scotland:

First, it's further evidence that the coffee culture is firmly entrenched in the centre of Glasgow.

Secondly, it shows the different character of parliamentary election campaigns in Scotland. Four major parties and a huge number of minor parties mean that the lamp-posts get covered with more posters, bringing colour and variety to the streetscape. An interesting urban design side-effect of proportional representation.

Better Bus Stops

If you take the bus to work every day, then it’s possible that you might spend about 4 days a year just waiting at a bus stop.

This is a long time to be hanging around on a bit of pavement with strangers, so it’s worth looking at the design of bus stops in more detail.

What makes a good bus stop?

1. Comfortable

It should be comfortable. This means several things - obviously some decent seats are important. Also, there should be a clear view in the direction where the bus is coming from (not obscured by advertising boards), so that the bus can be seen coming. Information on bus routes, bus times and a local map are always useful.

Also, real-time information displays have been shown to make passengers more relaxed, as they have more certainty over how long they need to wait.

2. A 'bus stop ecosystem' of other useful things

It must have a good ‘bus stop ecosystem’. There should be a range of other things at a bus stop for the convenience of passengers. This can range from simple things like a bin, a post box and a phone box up to more complex things like a convenience shop, car park or interchange with other public transport. Plenty of activity makes the bus stop feel safer.

3. Queues

The design of bus stops should take into account the tradition of queuing for buses. In practice, this is only possible in less busy areas, where bus stops are only served by one bus route. In busier, city centre locations, queues make no sense because nobody knows which bus route the others are waiting for, and if two buses appear at the same time, everyone just runs for it.

It might be possible to mark separate queue lines on the pavement for each bus route, but even to the queue-loving English this might seem a bit extreme.

4. A Sense of Permanence

Lastly, bus stops must have a sense of permanence. Buses are the most efficient and most environmentally sensible form of public transport in most cities. The common problem of congestion is easily solved by dedicated bus lanes and priority junctions.

The problem is that they don’t feel like permanent services because they don’t have rails - there is a sense that they could be easily stopped or re-routed tomorrow. This is why much less efficient and more expensive forms of transport like electric trams are more popular.

A sense of permanence can be created by evidence of long-term investment in the bus route and bus stop. This might take the form of higher quality street furniture, or publishing maps that indicate every bus stop on the route, in the same way that rail maps indicate each station. (The excellent Spider Maps produced by Transport for London are a good example of this) - if we see our bus stop marked on a map then we have more confidence that it will be there for the foreseeable future.

The New Science of Liveability

A few years ago, I was presenting a masterplan scheme when someone in the audience asked, "Will it have its own rugby team?"

I gave the only answer I could - 'I don't know - it's up to the people who live there whether they want to form a team or not! It's not up to the urban designer.'

But the question raised an important point, as we build millions of new houses across the UK - "Who, if anyone, is responsible for creating the conditions that allow community activities to form?"

This question is probably better addressed  to policymakers than designers, and yet 'creating a successful community' is the holy grail of urban designers everywhere. The part of the government responsible for urban design and planning is now the Department for Communities and Local Government.

In 1955, G. A. Hillery studied 94 different definitions of the word community, and concluded, "beyond the concept that people are involved in community, there is no complete agreement as to the nature of community."

Of course none of us want this inconvenient statement to get in the way of the UK's ambition to create new communities, and below I've listed some things which are thought to encourage community-type activities.

This only deals with the physical aspects of the environment - the walls, buildings, street furniture, entrances etc - and of course there is a limit to what these can achieve on their own.

1. Special places of easy contact

There are a small number of special places in cities, where people are much more likely to talk to complete strangers.

The pavements outside schools, where parents wait to pick up their children, are the site of many chance conversations because of strong shared interest in the school, and the fact that parents may need to wait there for long periods in the afternoon.

However, these areas are often very poorly designed and congested. If they were better arranged, with comfortable and sheltered waiting areas or a café, then their potential as a place for meeting others could be greatly enhanced.

Other similar places include children’s play areas, and parks where people walk their dogs. Dog toilets are important, and probably trigger more chance meetings than they are given credit for.

Chance conversations happen at bus stops, particularly when buses are late.

2. Encourage pedestrian speed

These meetings in a city only happen at walking pace, or preferably at a stop. Therefore, designing in places to sit down is a key factor.

The urban designer can organize buildings, streets and spaces in a way that slows vehicles down to near walking pace. The image below shows an old residential street in Llandovery, Wales, demonstrating the type of street in which cars must travel at a walking pace.

In new residential developments, this subtle form of traffic calming is rarely achieved. However it is possible, as demonstrated by Alan Baxter & Associates and Leon Krier, who pioneered a series of pedestrian-friendly street designs at Poundbury in Dorset (This development is best known for its neo-vernacular architecture, but the subtle, people-friendly highways engineering is in many ways a more significant achievement).

3. Sense of place/identity/belonging

Creating a sense of identity, or character, is a notoriously difficult goal. Many of the things that we consider distinctive, or positive, about a place have nothing to do with the physical design. However, the physical design is often the only thing that the urban designer has any influence over.

The character of an individual person can be described as a set of habits, or repeated actions, and similarly the character of an urban area can be defined by a set of repeated design features, or customs - choice of materials, typology or architectural style, for example, or a method of dealing with the natural landscape.

a. A clear boundary – a wall, a stream, a hedge, a road, a running track, a transport route, a line of trees, or a clear built edge – can make it clear when someone is in the place or out of the place, creating a clear spatial identity.

b. Unique, recognizable high quality details or building typologies – a distinctive style or type of building, street sign, or window design, or type of brick, or traffic light, or lamp-post – will become familiar elements of the development and create a material identity for the place.

For example, the buildings of Glasgow and other Scottish cities are very distinctive because of their stone construction, high storey heights, large windows and organization into tenement flats:

 

c. Thirdly, local landmarks (good or even bad design) can stimulate the imagination and become points of reference, therefore creating a sense of shared interest in the local area.

4. Awareness of other people as a source of skills and help

Knowing someone living nearby who knows how to fix your computer, or knows a bit about plumbing or DIY, will generate communication within local areas.

There's not much an urban designer can do about this, though.

5. Online communities supporting real communities

Blogs on websites such as Camberwell Online, the Kings Cross Local Environment website (which covers the area near our offices) are valuable sources of local information, and websites such as PledgeBank created by MySociety also play important roles within real world local communities.

What can the urban designer do to help online communities? Very little, except perhaps to design the streets in a way that ensures that new telecoms infrastructure can be laid without too much disruption.

6. Local Services

Newsagents, other local shops, chemists, GP surgeries, launderettes and pubs are all important places where contacts are made and communities can form.

Designers can suggest places where these services can happen, but have relatively little control over what services will come. This depends on planning policy and accurate assessments of the demand for individual services.

However, designers do have an important role in fixing the details of the masterplan. The depth and storey-heights of the property unit constrain what uses are possible, while the service and utility infrastructure should be made generous and robust so that the accommodation does not become obsolete too quickly.

Towards a new science of liveability:

For the sake of argument we can assume that a 'community' occurs when people meet their neighbours and feel a sense of shared ownership, identity and obligation towards their locality, leading to a safer and generally higher quality of life for everyone.

The search for 'liveability' and the creation of 'communities' at the urban masterplan scale requires a tricky balance between intuitive and systematic thinking. It is not an exact science which can be accurately measured, but neither is it an impenetrable dark art.

Historic urbanism is sometimes prescribed in a slightly unscientific way, as if there was some kind of magic at work in the plans of older towns. However, many of the so-called intangible qualities inherent in older urban areas are of course a great deal more tangible and objective than they seem.

With a bit of effort , it is possible for us to systematically and holistically understand which design features are more likely to allow successful communities to develop. The examples given above are just a starting point.

This understanding should then be used to leverage policies unrelated to design, in order to achieve much greater confidence in the success of the many new communities currently being built across the UK.

 

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