Shifting street: A new street form turn street into place

Abstract

The street is one of the key spaces that people spend their time at everyday. The experiences of the street are important to enhance the quality of people’s life. There are lots of ways to build a street. With different situations, there should be different ways to organize the spaces of the street. However, the people’s street life is not unalterable in a day. So my thesis focuses on using the idea of the street shifting to enhance space experiences of the street to help people enjoy their street life.

In many cases to enhance the street experiences, designers use the pavement, street furnitures, trees and lights, but all the components are unchangeable, which means they design for the major situation of the street. How about all these street components are alternating to adjust the form of street to meet people’s different demands?

Using the shifting street is not to respond to one specific situation, but to build the street to prepare for different traffic volume and different situations. Building a shifting street to respond to more situations in the city street, especially the main street of a metropolis, which include many people’s activities in a particular area. Because the changes of people’s activities and traffic volume, we can not make sure what is the major function of the street in a particular time. Besides make an appropriate city plan, landscape should use a shifting street as a tool to enhance the street experiences.

Overall, this thesis looks at throughout the shifting street to enhance the street experiences to make the street space better for the pedestrian.