Shared Space: Place and Transportation Design

Shared SpaceFuture Thinking

Place + Transportation Design

Norman W. Garrick

University of Connecticut

An old idea... rediscovered

Shared Spaces is a reconsideration of how urban space is designed

In shared space design, signs, signals, lines play a subordinate role

The idea is that the design governs how the space is used

Storrs, Connecticut, 1950s SubdivisionA design that supports pedestrian use

Rockport, Cape Ann, MassachusettsPedestrians Control, Cars Share

Hans Monderman, Dutch Engineer (1945 – 2008) was inspired by these types of more traditional places in conceptualizing

Shared Spaces

Monderman conceptualized design as being based on

System Time

…. or Context Time, where human behavior prevails

System Time

Traffic Behavior Governs

Single purpose

Regulated

Impersonal

Uniform

Predictable

Context Time

Social Behavior Governs

Multi-functional

Culturally defined

Personal

Diverse

Unpredictable

How We Got Away from Context Time DesignThe Case of Switzerland

Source: Die Disziplinierung Der Stadt Moderner Stadtebau in Zurich 1900 bis 1940 by Daniel Kurz

Traffic Education: The definition of the road, forcing pedestrians to behave.Illustration from the Zurich Traffic manual, which was distributed to all school children in 1927

Automobiles and City Streets

Before the advent of the automobile, the users of city streets were diverse and included

children at play and pedestrians at large.

By 1930, most streets were primarily motor thoroughfares where pedestrians were

condemned as ‘jaywalkers.’

In Fighting Traffic, Peter Norton argues that to accommodate automobiles, the American city required not only a physical change but also a

social one: before the city could be reconstructed for the sake of motorists, its streets had to be socially reconstructed as

places where motorists belonged.

“It was not an evolution, but a bloody and sometimes violent revolution.”

Falsch

Richtig

Examples of Context Time Design

Thanks to the work of Monderman and others, including Ben Hamilton Baillie in the UK

some places are again adopting context time based design

Poynton, UK - Before

Poynton, UK - After

So Why Shared Space?

SaferMore Efficient

Serves wider community needs

Norman W. Garrick

[email protected]/~garrick