Widening sustainable mobiLity networKs: Impact on Nodes

The scope
The design approach plays an important role for the Creative Industry involved in the urban transformation of our living environment. In the Walk-In project, the Creative Industry is represented by Dutch designers and researchers experts in the field of architecture and urban design. Walk-In is using the design process as a method of collaboration with policy makers and designers involved in the development of station areas (image 1). Looking at the different spatial scales (the building, the district and the city), in terms of programming, architecture, public spaces, and the integration with several modes of transports, Walk-In aims to understand the difficult relationship between the ambitions, long-term master planning, and the urban development processes, within short-term conditions, of small suburban stations. 

The starting point for Walk-In is using design to define the brief for an integrated station (area development) project and to collaborate with many stakeholders and designers along the ‘iterative’ design process of negotiation. Walk-In is developing a toolkit which proposes an assessment method, generic guidelines, and spatial solutions for the integration of sustainable mobility in public space at public transport nodes. By doing that in a collaborative way, Walk-In is providing a design for debate and co-creation that helps understanding and visualizing new sustainable, inclusive, and healthy worlds.

The case 
How can we improve mobility transitions, making them seamless and less car dependent, while also improving the public space of the station, making them more inviting and attractive for people? Walk-In focuses on the small suburban stations, called hubs or nodes, in the metropolitan areas of Dutch cities. 

The first case owner of Walk-In is the City of Rotterdam, with Rotterdam Zuid area as a test bed for the design method. Within the low-car inner city policy (autoluw), suburban nodes are becoming enablers of the mobility transition (promoting the transition from car to public transport or bike, in combination with shared mobility), and catalyzers of new development projects. 

A scale jump (more public transport capacity, better robustness, and extra stations) will make existing urban areas more accessible (with corresponding possibilities for densification) and will enable new urbanization locations. As a result of the car limitation and reduction of P+R space for more greenery, housing, and public spaces, suburban nodes offer new opportunities and become an important topic to the City as part of their mobility strategy 2030+. The formulation of long-term transition strategies is urgently required for the City to comply with the new regulations on time. The Walk-In project aims at understanding, analyzing, and recognizing the role and position in the network of these peripheral stations, called Transit Stations within a newly defined Transit Zone at the periphery of Rotterdam (image 2). 

The co-creation
The urban and architectural intervention of a station project holds a high-level of complexity in terms of number of stakeholders and designers involved as well as disciplines and data. As follow up of recent practices on ‘node development’ and ‘integrated’ design approach of stations, Walk-In is developing, in co-creation with the partners, a doughnut model. It aims to test design choices for enabling stations to act as pedestrian friendly hubs with position, place and people value. 

Walk-In proposes a collaboration throughout the project from its preliminary stage until  finalization with the objective to facilitate the iterative moments of design, to anticipate changes and to speed up the process. By doing so, it aims to improve and innovate the professional practice of all partners at organizational, functional, user and societal level. For example, Zwarte Hond, PosadMaxwan and Mecanoo are working on several projects related to mobility transition and its relationship with urban development (such as ‘Journey to the Future’ or ‘Smart Hubs’); Vereniging Deltametropool is developing a ‘Model Information Nodes’; the Ministry of Infrastructure and Water management (I&M) is working on a national data integrated approach to node development; Bureau Spoorbouwmeester and Prorail are involved in all station projects. 

Furthermore, in consultation with the City of Rotterdam, three locations have been selected in Zuid, part of the previously defined Transit Zone. Those were explored by the students of TU Delft (Complex Projects) who were asked to realize inspiring visions of the future for those locations in transition, in order to make the goal of a low-car city tangible and thereby give direction to change, in which a new mobility reality is embedded in society in a sustainable way. 

These cases and several projects from practice were presented and discussed in workshops’ settings. (Image 3, 4). Throughout the iterative design process, all consortium partners (both academics and stakeholders) are learning on how to communicate among them (design for debate), to recognize the different expectations and be able to adjust the direction of the research towards the best results (images 5, 6).

The artifact
The artifact is an interactive display that visualizes the ongoing process of the project and opens up the Walk-In Model for the experience of the DDW visitors. Acknowledging the exhibition visitors as possible users and stakeholders of stations and station areas, the artifact aims to demonstrate the use of the tool through direct interaction and gather the visitor’s opinions on and experiences in stations (areas) as user data for the project. The side surfaces of the artifact accommodate information on the project, case studies, and the Station Area Tool with instructions on how to modify it. The Walk-In Model is accessible from the top of the box, where visitors can adjust and make doughnut models of the stations they often use or know well. A camera will be placed over the artifact in order to record and document the participation of the visitors.

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