Could transit sites become some of our great public spaces? - Designing differential mobilities of a mundane transit site in Denmark

A traffic junction in the suburban functionalist district of Aalborg East in Denmark, designed in the 1970s, organises and orchestrates through traffic segregation the temporal and spatial co-existence of multiple and diverse daily journeys.

This paper discusses the re-design potentials of the urban spaces of traffic segregation with regard to sensory and social qualities of different ways of embodied wayfaring. The discussion draws on ethnographic studies into journeys, which entangle at the transit site,as well as re-design studio experiments. These draw to the foreground of design considerations the engagement between the wayfarer and the environment.

The paper is structured in five sections.
I set out by introducing the traffic segregated transit site. Second, I outline and argue for the design challenge: to re-design the transit site as an important public space – a central part of our social and cultural life. Third, I draw on my studies into journeys at the site to learn about the spatial practicings of the site and of the properties and possibilities of the urban space design. Fourth, I explore in written text and drawing re-design potentials. And last, I sum up propositions for designing differential mobilities of this transit site.