Reimagining Waiting for the Bus: Design Principles for Spaces surrounding Bus Shelters

Title of Project:

Reimagining Waiting for the Bus: design Principles for Spaces surrounding Bus Shelters

Funding:

CURC Tier 2

Responsible:

Carmela Cucuzzella

Jean-Pierre Chupin

Emmanuel Rondia

Sherif Goubran

Research Assistants:

Maddy Cappozzi

Description:

A free, illustrated guide that invites citizens to imagine the spaces surrounding bus shelters in their own neighbourhoods. This creative guide, the result of an international competition, is a synthesis of the best ideas in the form of a free resource aimed at stimulating citizen discussion and community group engagement around the improvement of small urban environments connected to bus stops.

This initiative is part of a joint program between Concordia University’s IDEAS-BE Research Chair (Integrated Design, Ecology, and Sustainability for the Built Environment) and the Canada Research Chair in Architecture, Competitions and Mediations of Excellence of the Université de Montréal (CRC-ACME). This inter-university partnership aims to stimulate debates on the role of public spaces in highlighting climate change issues, while mobilizing citizen creativity in the fields of the built environment. The 2017 international competition was organized in collaboration with the Conseil régional de l’environnement de Montréal (CRE- Montréal), which is dedicated to protecting the environment and promoting sustainable development on the island of Montreal.

This richly illustrated, educational guide presents ideas that encourage appreciation of urban spaces by emphasizing the importance of nature, art and design. Reinventing Bus Waiting invites citizens to think about creative approaches, neighborhood by neighborhood, bus stop by bus stop, that would energize these public spaces in an interactive, poetic, critical and meaningful way: moving the immediate environment of bus stops from a merely functional to a multipurpose spatiality.

The aim is not to redesign the bus shelter, but to make the experience of waiting for the bus more pleasant in various ways, to encourage citizens to use the bus instead of their car, all year round, including during the hot summer days and the long periods of freezing winter.

The ideas extracted from projects from many countries are not presented as solutions but as illustrated principles gathered along 5 vectors going from culture to social dimensions, from ecological concerns to technological innovations and, in general, to everything that can increase the feeling of well-being.

Resulting from a research and creation process, this guide aims to encourage citizens to seize these often-neglected spaces in which waiting should be given all the attention necessary to enhance the value of public transport.