Productivity, pleasure and pace: rethinking travel time use in the gothenburg public transport system

Outside of rush hours, on the other hand, the pavilion becomes a vibrant and diverse gathering space for the inhabitants of the area. After the morning rush, the local pensioners can meet for coffee and knitting. In the afternoon, when school is finished, it can host after-school homework sessions. Since the pavilion is situated by a transport hub it is easy for kids from the surrounding areas to get there too. Later in the evening, it will be the place where for example the local residents' organization and the gardening group will host their meetings. Different non-academic education institutions like Folkuniversitetet can use the space for organizing workshops and courses. The scouts or the church could organize a cafй during weekend nights as an alternative to alcohol and drugs for the youth of the area.

The space will be maintained by the housing company, which already has caretakers working in the area. They will make sure that they know who is using the space and as long as it is treated with care, anyone can use it for any type of activity.

All these groups and organizations will have the possibility to store and display artifacts from their activities, incrementally creating a kind of museum over the area. This museum would be visible at all times for the commuters waiting in the space. The few commuters that are waiting outside of rush hours will also always have the possibility to join in, or just listen to the activities going on in the space.

Fig. 9 Diagram, usage of pavilion during summers and winters

The use of the pavilion will also transform between the different seasons. During the summer it is will open up to the outside and appropriate a larger part of the parking lot. The gardening group can grow plants in flower boxes and the surrounding space can be used for flea markets and similar events.

In the winter on the other hand, when the climate does not allow for outdoor activities, the pavilion will become much more of a warm and bright shelter. The activity going on inside will be showcased very well since it is dark most hours of the day.

3.2.4 Conclusion

In conclusion, what I propose is for the public transport company and the housing company to collaborate to build a mixed-used pavilion for community and commuters. The idea is to reduce the potentially negative social effects of the new infrastructure by including the community into the development. This is a strategy with prototypical potentials, something that will be further discussed in chapter 4.

3.3 Marklandsgatan

Title of project:

Exploring the possibilities of unmanned places:

Giving identity to a placeless site

3.3.1 Opportunity

Marklandsgatan is a place of no community. It is a place that no one considers to be “theirs”. Yet, it is a place where thousands of people pass through each day, some of them for a couple of minutes, others up to an hour. This project aims to explore the unmanned nature of places like Marklandsgatan. What can be done at a place that no one looks after? Marklandsgatan is also interesting due to the fact that two very different socioeconomic groups converge, for a brief moment, at the site. With this project, I seek to find a common ground between them, a way to make them meet each other in an otherwise largely segregated city.

Since Marklandsgatan is currently lacking in activity, there is a great opportunity to improve the waiting time experience at the hub.

Fig. 10 Customer journey description, Marklandsgatan Sunday evening

3.3.2 Placement

At Marklandsgatan there is currently an interesting roof structure that acts as a shelter from the elements. Apart from benches, a free newspaper dispenser, and transportation information boards, the structure is empty of elements for interaction.

The plan for this project is to fill the roof structure with identity and meaning. Instead of building something new, the idea is to use what is already there and make something more useful out of it. The idea is to introduce different functions and features in the different spaces underneath the roof, making Marklandsgatan a more active place with higher possibilities for people to interact.

Fig. 11 & 12 The roof structure at Marklandsgatan

Fig. 13 Plan Marklandsgatan, Roof structure marked in blue

Fig. 14 3D-model of the roof structure in isolation

3.3.3 Strategy for interaction

One of the main objectives for the implementation on Marklandsgatan has been to find a common ground, a place to meet, for the very different socioeconomic groups converging at the hub. This is in a way a daunting task. So many projects have tried and failed before. Gothenburg is a very spatially segregated city and the times and places these different groups meet are rare. Therefore, it is important to try to identify a common ground and try to find a way for the groups to come together.

If successful, Marklandsgatan could become a truly democratic place. With that said, I do not think that this means that it should become directly political. The point is not to create a place for political discussion. A place like that would, due to the large differences in the social, cultural and economic capital also be used in an imbalanced way.

For this project, I have been more interested to explore the things that everyone, regardless of class, needs to do. If Marklandsgatan can become a one-stop shop for all of people's after work or school errands, people can do those things in a diverse place on their way home, rather than in their respective segregated area. There is an including power to the mundane that more obviously political activities cannot compete with.

3.3.4 Proposed activities

In this project, I want to take advantage of the fact that Marklandsgatan is a place where no one belongs and use it as a neutral ground for people to meet. But it also poses challenges. How do we introduce features addressing common human needs, to make people from different part of society interact in a place that no one feel is theirs? How do we cater to those needs in an unmanned way?

I propose a menu of features, that offers different things at different times, to make Marklandsgatan a more diversely active place. I do not see this menu as something static, but rather something that evolves and changes over time. What I am proposing here are a few versions of what the set up can be. In the next subchapter, I will discuss further what kind of agency could be in charge of curating the changes.

Fig. 15 Diagram, activity by time of day

Marklandsgatan has a completely different pace depending on the time of the day. Therefore, the activity going on there will also be different at different times. In the afternoons, at rush hours, the frequency of vehicles is very high, which leads to a situation where a lot of people pass through but they only stay a short amount of time. This calls for activities that are quick, and necessary. I propose there to be a package pick-up station and the possibility to print some last-minute papers. A vending machine where people can buy an afternoon snack. This is also the time of the day that the place is at its loudest. By placing a silence box, people who want to stay a bit longer could do so without being disturbed by the noise.

At the evening, on the other hand, there are much fewer people at Marklandsgatan but since the express buses going south departs only every half hour or hour people are waiting there for much longer. Here there could be screenings of movies or sports events that bring people together. There could also be broadcasting of audio stories about the area so that people could learn while waiting. At night, there could also be light projections, giving identity to the hub.

A constant feature is the bulletin board that could be used both for slow and quick communication. People can post notes about things they are looking for, things that they want to sell. It could be used as a chalkboard for people who wants to study or just as a way to express a thought or emotion.

Fig. 16 Diagram, activity by season

The features will change throughout the year, but some features will be more permanent than others. While investigating what unmanned interventions can look like, an obvious reference was the vending machine. A vending machine is basically a kiosk without a cashier. I wanted to introduce this feature at Marklandsgatan. I have been exploring different ideas for what can be distributed or sold through a vending machine. It would make sense to sell basic food staple so that people can do their grocery shopping at the hub on their way home. Another idea is to have an art vending machine where you could buy postcard-sized artworks and that at the same would act as a miniature gallery.

The use of the space will differ significantly between summer and winter. During the winter, when the climate is cold and most of the day is dark, most emphasis will be put on creating giving people shelter. Heating and daylight lamps will be installed to create a more comfortable environment. In the summer, it could be used more as an impromptu coworking space for freelancers. A playground for kids would give the possibility for their parents to focus on something of their own for a while.

3.3.5 Curation of features

Vдsttrafik, the public transport company, is the agency that maintains Marklandsgatan. For this project to be realized, it would have to go through them.

There would need to be a person curating the rotation of features. I imagine Vдsttrafik appointing someone to do this on a 3 or 6-month basis. An architect or urbanist can be in charge for one summer and then an artist takes over for the winter. A group of people from the areas connected through Marklandsgatan could also oversee the rotation.

The job description could be anything from picking what would be sold in the vending machines to organizing movie or sports screenings or designing completely new installations.

3.3.6 Conclusion

In conclusion, what I propose for Marklandsgatan is a strategy of embracing the site's unmanned nature by introducing a rotation of activities that do not need present caretakers. The hope is that by making the site more active, the people of different socioeconomic background, that are already converging there today, will also start interacting more.

Marklandsgatan surely is not the only unmanned transport hub in Gothenburg. The ideas implemented for Marklandsgatan can also be implemented on different site in the city. This will be further addressed in the next chapter.

4. Further implications

When starting this project, I was aiming to first and foremost design a systems project on a citywide scale. The hubs that I chose to investigate were to serve as reference points to use in the development of that system. I picked two sites that I believed could give me a wide enough spectrum of insights while at the same time being similar enough to draw some general conclusions from.

While that hypothesis turned out to be more or less true, I still chose a different direction. During the research of the two sites, I found too many specificities worthy of notice to only draw general conclusions to be implemented on a citywide scale. In the end, as I have presented in the chapter above, it turned out to be two site specific projects.

Therefore, I am now doing it the other way around. Rather than doing a project on a systematic scale to inform local projects, I have done local projects that are potentially prototypical for a project on a systematic scale. Even though the projects are site specific I have identified that the two sites could be regarded as two typologies that can be found in Gothenburg and beyond.

4.1.1 Prototypical projects

Brunnsbotorget and Marklandsgatan are different but they are so in a dialectic way. Brunnsbotorget is as defined by the fact that it serves a community as Marklandsgatan is defined by the fact that it does not. We could say that Brunnsbotorget is a “Community Hub” and that Marklandsgatan is a “Transfer Hub”. If we can then identify other community and transfer hubs in Gothenburg and other parts of Sweden, we can use the strategies and methods I have developed for the sites in this project.

The lesson we can learn from Brunnsbotorget and that could help other community hubs is to include other stakeholders that are active in the area into the development process. If that happens, the new infrastructure can be used more effectively and the potential social disruption of the areas can be minimized. An area in Gothenburg that immediately comes to mind is Gamlestadstorget where a new train station in, the so-called,Vдstlдnken is to be built. The area is already going through large transformations and processes of gentrification and is in a socially vulnerable state. A more community conscious development could preserve the presence of communities that are under threat.

A more radical example where these thoughts could be implemented is in the city of Kiruna, a mining city in the Swedish far north. Kiruna has become internationally famous due to the fact that the whole city needs to be moved due to the sinkhole from the mine shaft is creeping closer to the city. How can the community be involved when it is not only a matter of new infrastructure coming in but when the entire city is moved to a new location? How can, despite the physical uprooting, a community keep its foundation in such an extreme situation? Due to the fact that many of the transport hubs and stops are place seemingly unrelated to the city fabric, there are many potential places of implementation of the idea developed for Marklandsgatan. One such example is Svingeln, where many bus lines start and end but that still feels weirdly devoid of content. By placing unmanned interventions at, for example, Svingeln and other similar sites, a network of active hubs could be developed throughout the city, making the travel time use more efficient in the system as a whole.

4.1.2 Conclusions

While the urge of being general often is very tempting, it is important to remember that every site is unique and that, in order to make a successful project, it is necessary to properly understand the specificities of each one of them. With that said, it is possible to translate and generalize findings from one site and apply them to many others. A continuation of this project would most likely go in that direction. To identify more typologies and to propose a much larger rethinking of the way we treat our transport related spaces.

In this case, the two projects I have proposed will be just two in a larger mass of interventions. If the project was to be scaled to that level, the transport hubs would be much more integrated to the city fabric and to people's lives. The variety of interventions would be large, but they would still be tied together through a shared philosophy of space usage. It would also be connected through a shared design language, letting people know that they are in an improved transport hub.

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