Reykjavík Grapevine - 13.04.2012, Blaðsíða 10

10
The Reykjavík Grapevine
Issue 4 — 2012
Inspired by urbanist William H.
Whyte’s work in New York, a group
of young Icelandic architects (plus
one music composer and one
graphic designer) decided to re-
search city life in Reykjavík. With
grants from the Icelandic Stu-
dent Innovation Fund RANNÍS and
the EU’s “Youth in Action” pro-
gramme, the group—which calls
itself Borghildur (the combination
of “city” and the female name “Hil-
dur”)—has spent nearly two years
looking into how and why people
use public spaces. Two of the group
members, Auður Hreiðarsdóttir and
Gunnhildur Melsteð, tell us what
they’ve learned.
One of your projects involved moni-
toring changes on Iceland’s main
shopping street, Laugavegur, when
it was closed to traffic last summer.
What did you observe?
Auður Hreiðarsdóttir: When there’s
traffic, people typically walk along the
buildings. During the summer, how-
ever, they started wandering around
and were thus much more relaxed. The
street became a space rather than just
a place to walk through. Our mapping
revealed that there was a 90% increase
in stops on the street. And after talk-
ing to people on Laugavegur, it became
obvious there was a desire for better
urban life.
How do you conduct your research?
Auður Hreiðarsdóttir: When we make
a map of a certain space, we go there
and mark spots where people stop for
ten to fifteen minutes. We do that four
times a day and get an average of where
people stop. To compare the findings, it
is important that the conditions, such
as the weather, are the same.
Gunnhildur Melsteð: We also film
and make time lapses to observe what
people tend to do in a certain spot and
catch interesting behaviour. Usually,
people are very predictable, but some-
times someone does something unex-
pected.
AH: When people do something unex-
pected, it’s typically due to something
in the environment. If you see some-
thing unusual, you can almost be sure
that another person is going to do the
same thing.
GM: For example, last summer a per-
son walked across Lækjartorg and sat
down on a bench in the square. She
took her shoes off, rubbed her feet, put
them back on and walked along. Ten
minutes later, a boy came and did the
exact same thing. We don’t know what
in the environment made them do it,
but it was very interesting to see.
You set out to find out how people
use public spaces and why they use
them that way. Do you have an an-
swer?
AH: I think when it comes to urban
research there's no conclusion or sin-
gle answer. There are definitely many
clues, but the city is always developing.
What we discovered are patterns.
I'm sure our research will continue in-
definitely, be it as a group or individual-
ly. Researching how people use public
spaces is a never-ending story, and it
probably should be, as people's behav-
iour is bound to change with time and
new surroundings. It probably repeats
itself though, like fashion, where some
things are always classic.
Generally speaking, how does de-
sign influence people’s everyday
life?
AH: Design has a lot of influence on
people, but it is never only the design.
Combinations of design, the function
of a place and even weather influence
city life. If something is well designed,
it doesn’t necessarily attract people if
there are no services around.
And horribly designed things, such as
hot dog stands, still attract many people
because they attend to a specific need.
So good design can lead to something
happening, but it doesn’t guarantee it.
GM: Good design means taking every-
thing into consideration, and it is best
when it doesn’t strike you as being too
designed. But ultimately, some street
vendors can set up shop in front of a
grey wall and bring street life to the
dullest part of Austurstræti.
So will your work have an impact on
the city?
GM: It will be a good reference for the
future when people look back at how
the city has changed over the years.
A lot of the places we have observed
have the potential to become better city
spaces simply by adding services and
making the space more inviting.
AH: We are trying to contribute to the
discussion and perhaps influence the
future design of our city. Perhaps ar-
chitects and urban designers who work
in Reykjavík will use our research. We
also hope our project makes people
more interested in thinking about our
city spaces in this way.
After Laugavegur was tem-
porarily closed to traffic
last summer, many are
wondering whether the ex-
periment will be repeated
this year. Although it seems
like people were happy with the change,
with foot traffic increasing from 9.000 to
14.000 per day, the move remains contro-
versial.
In particular, a group of fifty mer-
chants from the Laugavegur area are not
thrilled with the idea of a “pedestrian only
shopping street.” They have now handed
Mayor Jón Gnarr a petition arguing that
closing Laugavegur to car traffic seriously
damages their businesses. The group’s
spokesperson Björn Jón Bragason says that
commerce suffered when the street was
closed to traffic. “The truth of the matter is
that the customers want to be able to get to
the shops by car and to park close to them.
If they don’t get a parking space, they will
go somewhere else,” he tells me. He also
argues that walking has never been suc-
cessful in Iceland “due to gloomy weather.”
There’s no doubt that Icelanders are big
on cars. In fact, only Monaco has a higher
number of passenger cars per 1.000 inhab-
itants than Iceland. However, Karl Sigurðs-
son, chair of Reykjavík’s Department of
Environment and Transportation, believes
Icelanders could be open to other means
of transport. “It’s easy to say that Iceland-
ers ‘have chosen’ the private car when city
planning is simply aimed at getting them
into the car and keeping them there,” Karl
says. “The car has been given the right to
dominate everything for years, but there
is a changing attitude amongst the public,
and my department needs to take this into
account and aspire to more equality in dif-
ferent ways of transport.”
Furthermore, he doesn’t believe that
weather alone—though characterised by
violent winds and heavy rain or snow for
a good part of the year—rules out a pedes-
trian only shopping street. “We don’t live in
the windiest or the snowiest country in the
world and it’s easy to point to foreign cities
that have a far worse climate than we do,
but still have pedestrian shopping streets,”
Karl says. As a frequent biker, often in low
temperatures and heavy winds, he says
that it is simply a matter of wearing proper
clothing. Here, he admits, Icelanders still
have a lot to learn.
While some fifty merchants are peti-
tioning the city’s move to close the street
to traffic again, Karl says that a greater
number of merchants were happy with the
experiment. “It is clear that the experiment
last year went well and was approved of by
most of the people who visited the city cen-
tre, and there is no reason why we shouldn’t
redo the experiment this year,” he says.
However, time will tell if, how and
when it will be done. “Contrary to what has
been said, we have not yet reached a deci-
sion on the matter, but different ideas are
being discussed,” Karl says. He maintains
that the department will take into account
all of the different concerns expressed by
merchants and interest groups, but ulti-
mately The City Council has the final word.
Opinion | Mikael Lind
Who Rules The Streets?
The skirmish over Laugavegur
continues
City planning | Laugavegur
WHAT'S HAppENING ON LAUGAVEGUR?
Words
Lynn Klein
Illustration
Borghildur
How Reykjavík's city planning inf luences its everyday Life
You can have a look at Borghildur’s projects at http://borghildur.info/. The site
is in Icelandic, but they will soon publish their videos with English subtitles.
The illustration shows Laugavegur
in June (above - with cars) and July
(below - car-free).
Explanation: We mapped where people
stopped on Laugavegur on a weekday
in June and July. We marked where
people stopped four times during
the day and why they were stopping.
This mapping analysis revealed that
there was a 90% increase in stops on
the street. Furthermore the pattern
of movement was different and the
stops where distributed more evenly
in the street space. This comparison
was reasonable in terms of w eather
because conditions were the same.
(previous date was Tuesday June 21st,
average temperature from 9:00 to
18:00, 12.1°C, partly cloudy. Later date
was Wednesday July 20th, average
temperature from 9:00 to 18:00,
12.3°C, partly cloudy.)
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