Rob Imrie, King’s College London

Divide presentation into three parts:

(1). The origins of an idea: reaction to the modernist city.

(2). What are Shared Spaces?

(3). An evaluation of Shared Spaces.

(1). The origins of an idea: reaction to the modernist city.

Rationality of planning…

Increase economic efficiency of city

Create order from chaos

Use of engineering and technique

Strict zoning

Cities - conduits for cars not people

Auto-mobility…the rise of auto cultures…

Priority to flows, movement, and mobility

Rise of auto-infrastructures

e.g. 40% of land in USA cities, roads and parking lots

Segregated spaces, managed spaces…

1966, ‘Research on Urban Areas’ (Ministry of Transport)

‘Traffic segregation should be the key note of modern road design’.

….familiar landscape of underpasses and over bridges, barriers and signals…

Nothing new about sharing spaces:

Clarence Stein (1927) and the design of Radburn, NJ

“a radical revision of relations of houses, paths, gardens, parks, blocks, and local neighbourhoods”.

Jane Jacobs

Promenades that go from no place to nowhere and have no promenaders. Expressways that eviscerate great cities. This is not the rebuilding of cities. It is the sacking of cities (1993: 6).

(2). What are Shared Spaces?

Hans Monderman

Traffic engineer, pioneered 120 Shared Spaces in Friesland…

…getting cars to slow down…

‘to look each other in the eye, to judge body

language and learn to take responsibility – to function as normal human beings’.

Shared Spaces:

A traffic engineering concept involving the removal of the traditional separation

between motor vehicles and pedestrians and other road users, and the removal of

traditional road priority management devices such as kerbs, lines, signs and

signals.

Shared Spaces…

Safety agenda, vulnerability of children in poor areas.

Health agenda, create safer spaces for cyclists and pedestrians.

Absence of open space/play space in poorer inner urban areas.

Shared Spaces…

Dismantling prescriptive rules and regulations.

Eradicating formal order.

Shape public space through behavioural and intuitive use.

In the UK…

1992 - Design Bulletin 32, Home Zones

1997 - £30 million, Home Zone Pilot Project

2004 - 60 schemes complete or underway.

2007 - Few completed schemes on the ground (DoT)

Ad hoc traffic calming schemes at best

186030 Guide Dogs Shared Surfaces.pptCHART 2

Local Authorities with existing planned/in construction or proposed shared surface schemes

17

70 72

33 3115 16

21 22

6 7

11 8

1 2

102

2

20

7 2

26

-100%

-80%

-60%

-40%

-20%

0%

20%

40%

60%

80%

100%

At any stage ExistingPlanned/in

construction Proposed

5 schemes or more

4 schemes

3 schemes

2 schemes

1 scheme

No schemes

Base: All Local Authorities interviewed with at least 1 existing, planned/in construction or proposed shared surface scheme (123)

0.61.46.88.7Average number of schemes per LA

691698351073Total number of schemes

(3). An evaluation of

Shared Spaces

Who is it for?

Renders the environment ‘illegible’

Disliked by certain categories of user, e.g. vision impaired.

Failure to deal with problems of motor vehicles/transport…

Seeks to create new ways to accommodate ‘auto-mobility’…

Lack of clarity about its main objective (s).

A different form or order, rule-based and prescriptive.

Re-assertion of an environmental determinism.