The Narrative of Arriving and Departing to Transit Spaces

The Narrative of Arriving and Departing to Transit Spaces Unfolding temporary congregations and the sequences of traveling through transit spaces.

a common bus stop as An investigation of the e. lif ay in our everyd central transit space

Anne Sofie Elgaard Sørensen Aalborg University ¡ MSc02 Urban Design

Theories of the Network City and its Technologies

Anne Sofie Elgaard Sørensen

The Narrative of Arriving and Departing to Transit Spaces Unfolding temporary congregations and the sequences of traveling through transit spaces. ______

Focus | Passing through space and time are everyday ventures. The pattern of human movement is an indispensable relationship between the subject, the environment, and the journeys and stories that unfold while we move through places (Kempf 2013). Journeys and pass-throughs become ordinary experiences in the everyday life and this is mirrored in the temporal and momentary relations that people evolve to certain places. This essay explores the storytelling of transit spaces and how these places become nerve centers of arrivals, departures, and temporal congregations. Leading to the following research question: How does temporal congregations and physical settings effect the everyday journeys and experience of transit spaces?

This leading question I want to investigate and discuss through the theories and concepts of a selection of sociologists and urban planners: Erving Goffman, Ole B. Jensen, Georg Simmel, and Kevin Lynch.

Point of departure | Using the studies of Goffman as a navigation tool to understand the micro scale mobilities and everyday usages of infrastructure (as waiting for the bus, riding the metro or being on a standby in the airport terminal) illustrates that movement embodies more than just mobility and getting from A to B. Set in relation to the sociology of numbers I want to investigate how “mobile withs” and “temporal congregations” influence and stage the everyday mobilities and journeys, as when we form temporal groupings with strangers at bus stops and then (relatively quickly) split up again. Through one of Goffman’s most essential metaphors of everyday activities the “dramaturgical metaphor” becomes an interpretation of how the the social life can be understood as a theater (Jensen 2013), which will be examined in relation to the thinking of “staging” and the concept of “civil inattention”, specifying how people acknowledge strangers and other peoples presence, but maintain civility and social distance.

The thoughts of “staging” and seeing the everyday activities of social life as a theater are echoed in the studies of Ole B. Jensen’s “Staging Mobilities” (2013). Here the relationship between movement, interaction and their mutual environments are being unpacked and staged from above and below. Where Goffman examine the city within a horizontal manner, Jensen unfolds the dramaturgical metaphor in a vertical direction by studying the impact of controlled systems and the internal power plays between moving people; positioning a view that mobile situations are more than just the movement between the individual destinations (Jensen 2013). Correspondingly does the German sociologist Georg Simmel develop a vocabulary around the interaction and individual performances that occur between moving people in the Metropolis in the essay of “The Metropolis and Mental Life” (1903). In the view of this will the concept of “blasé attitude” be used actively throughout this essay to understand and examine the lack of social interaction that emerge between strangers on the move.

Where Goffman, Jensen, and Simmel are immersed with how social life is being staged through mobility the American urban planner Kevin Lynch is engaged with the narrative, movement, and images that are being created as we flow through the volumes of the city. Without knowing the theories of Lynch become extensions of the studies of Goffman and Simmel as he clarifies how people observe the city while they move through it (Lynch 1960). Herewith Lynch simplifies how the city is sensed through motion awareness and that the sense of surprise and suspense of what there could be around the next corner is what makes urban travel fun and pleasure (Lynch 1981:274).

What unifies the theories of Goffman, Jensen, Simmel, and Lynch is a mutual understanding that travel and movement is more than just the transportation from A to B. The stage of the city is where the everyday life of random people is being unfolded and narrated, and this ballet of social intersections is the city pulse.

However there is an existing range of social norms and patterns in the late modern society that provoke civil distances as we flow through spaces, which to some extent create societal gaps that intensify the experience of transit spaces. This leads up to a further discussion on the perspectives of the above mentioned theories – 1! –

Theories of the Network City and its Technologies

Anne Sofie Elgaard Sørensen

and how these relate to how people experience and sense transit spaces and to which degree the terminology of intersections in public realm can be unfolded in the future.

The debate of traveling through transit spaces | In attempt to understand how people experience transit spaces and the stories that these places unfold I want to examine the statements and concepts of the respective theories. The study of how people behave in cities is discussed by both Erving Goffman and Georg Simmel. However their individual viewpoint on the social interfering between people are to some extend opposites. Simmel demonstrates a nuanced perspective on the metropolis where he claims that speed and the constant over stimulation of urban impressions have significant consequences for the social life in the city. In the essay “The Metropolis and Mental Life” (1903) Simmel states that the close relations and social cohesiveness that inhabitants evolve to each other in rural cities are not existing in the modern metropolis. Hereby Simmel expounds that the big city life is characterized by individual independency, obscurity, and impersonal relations. In context to this Simmel brings in the concept of blasé attitude which speaks that people in the city are alienated to each other and that we see other people as objects instead of subjects. However it can still be discussed that this uncommunicative and anonymous character of the metropolis actually offers a greater personal and social liberation than the more local communities where everybody knows each other. Where blasé attitude becomes a mental tool for people to comprehend the large amounts of impressions in the city Goffman’s concept of civil inattention is a more physical way of avoiding

collision with strangers. Simmel perceives the city with enhanced individualism reversely Erving Goffman who considers the metropolis as something dynamic and that reality is something people create together with others (Systime 2018). The micro perspective of Goffman on urban sociology expounds the symbolic interaction between people; something is always happening between strangers even though we might not be verbally communicating as we meet, social signals are still being exchanged. As Simmel claims the individual is at the center, Goffman and Lynch state that the metropolitans keep their integrity and selfcontrol as they move through the city. In the book “The Image of the City” (1960) Lynch describes the individual’s position and relation to the city in the quote: “[…] Since a city is sensed in motion […]” (Lynch 1960:107), hereby saying that the metropolitan is capable of creating individual images and understandings of the city as they move through it. This also projects mobility as an action on its own and that people actually finds pleasure and joy in moving around. Not only does Lynch understand people as subjects that are able to navigate between each other, he also sees them in a holistic manner and as individuals with ability to sense the societal environment.

The “I know that you are there, but do not notice you”-behavior of Goffman’s concept of civil inattention is present at most transit spaces. If one is waiting at a regular bus stop in Denmark (this could for instance be one at Randersvej i Aarhus), you will usually be waiting for the bus with five to ten unfamiliar – 2! –

Theories of the Network City and its Technologies

Anne Sofie Elgaard Sørensen

people. However you rarely make any social interfering or integration with those that you are standing there with. As we move through the city and especially through transit spaces people unintentionally form momentary groupings (this could be in the line at the supermarket, at the pedestrian crossing or at the bus stop). This constant variation of who we are with is what in many ways enhance the diversity and individual independence of the metropolis and the experience of transit spaces, which becomes a significant different experience compared to rural cities where the people whom you are waiting with at the bus stop is highly probable to be somebody that you already know. This endless formation of groupings in the big city has substantial influence on how people sense transit spaces and the lack of affiliation we form to the place. Petra Kempf describes in her book “You Are The City” (2009): “Cities are an open stage for complementary and conflicting encounters, and allow for multiple identities to emerge and evaporate. They are backdrops for dreams and desires, a platform for departures and arrivals. As individuals pass through, new connections arise while others fade away.” (Kempf 2009, p. 2) As Kempf states connections are being established as we form groupings in the city, however it is most likely that most of them remain temporary congregations when in the metropolis. The narrative of the bus stop itself is a characterized as a defined space (often by a glass structure with walls on three sides with attached advertising graphics) where people stay for a limited amount of time. Thereby the bus stop is defined as a place where people arrive and depart, and as you stay at the bus stop you indicate and signal to strangers that “you will soon be traveling to a new place”. Hereby the story of the bus stop becomes a passive transit space, where you only stay if you have to. This is what Humphry Osmond portrays as sociofugal and sociopetal places, where “sociofugal places” are places that distribute and “push” people away due to the space’s qualities of transit (Jensen 2013). “Sociopetal places” on the other hand draw people and activities in, inviting and comforting people to stay or acknowledging the requirements of transit. Nevertheless one might argue that the bus stop not only performs as a “sociofugal space” that forces people away to continue their journey, the bus stop equally facilitates and encourage people from different social groups to sit or interact.

In this way the bus stop narrates many individual stories as it both qualify people who are waiting, seeking cover from the rain, or in some cases sleep and shelter.

However the bus stop is currently characterized as a transit space that lacks identity and for the most part afford temporary congregations with a minimum of social interaction. The central purpose of the bus stop is simply to create a place for collecting travelers and facilitate their journey from A to B. There are no geographical or thematic references in the individual bus stop which provides you with informations about the city that you are surrounded by. The bus stop becomes therefore a copy-paste object with no relation to its environment or with any social appealing features. Lynch states in “City Sense and City Design” (1990): “[…] ordinary routes could easily be designed to make travelling a delight, and not just a necessity” (Lynch 1990, p.779). The bus stops along Randersvej in Aarhus provide a set of limited functions which is mirrored in the monotone design solution of the space. Instead of being a part of the overall travel experience the bus stop extrude the temporary users and becomes a place that is mainly staged from above. The bus stop fulfill a range of planning regulations that is set by the municipality, however the thoughts on social interaction and individual performances are hardly taken into consideration. Therefore the issue of rethinking bus stops as places that encourage different social groups to interact and mingle is what brings this essay to the next step of discussion: how can affordances and resilient mobility design revolutionize the common bus stop?

If Lynch speaks of motion awareness then it is perhaps about time that we think the sense of speed and motion into how travel nodes are being designed. The experience of transit spaces can feel static and changeless, however these spaces are much more intricate than that. As one arrive to a transit space (ex. a bus stop, train station, airport or a parking lot) you rarely have any expectations of how you want the place “to make you feel”. The most important fact is to transport yourself from A to B as fast as possible. However one might wonder if these transit spaces could actually become mental and physical extensions of the overall travel experience, saying that the bus stop would become an intelligent and thought through link creating a smooth and cohesive mobility chain as you arrive and depart on your journey. Having said that peoples ways are crossing at transit spaces there are already great potential to make the spaces into gathering and meeting points for social interaction. As multiple paths hybridize and intersection the requirements of the common bus stop expands and becomes more of a public “free-zone” for social groups to intersect. Hereby the claim – 3! –

Theories of the Network City and its Technologies

Anne Sofie Elgaard Sørensen

is that the increase of city complexities and the growth of urban movement patterns will influence the experience of transit places and can ultimately produce culture and city identity in the future (Jensen 2013).

Where Goffman and Jensen observe the city respectively in a horizontal and vertical direction it is feasible that designing with mobilities should be perceived and examined in a more volumetric dimension. As city complexities expand and urban structures grow multitude social interests, ecosystems, and infrastructural networks meet and merge in our cities. This frames that mobility and city planning is a complex combination, that not only can be progressed from two directions. To create harmonious and successful urban spaces we (as designers, engineers and architects) need to work not only technically or architecturally with places but also with an anthropological approach to understand and sense the spirit of the specific place.

By extending the vocabulary of working with mobilities design, concepts such as materialities, scales, volumes, surfaces, distances, and colours (Jensen ei. Lawson 2016) could potentially turn transit spaces into multi-sensorial public spaces. Working with affordances enables designers to create human relations from the existing environment and a sense of affiliation by integrating he existing cultural and spatial layers of the place. Herewith affordances become the tool that can facilitate movement, stimuli and social interfering in transit spaces – creating a increased value and cohesive travel narrative that enhance the fact that mobility is more than just the travel from A to B. Ending | The narrative of traveling consists of many variables and networking structures. As transit spaces are being experienced in our daily life we form numerous temporal congregations. This floating relationship between people and places emphasize our experience of transit spaces parallel with our presence in these places fade. As city complexities increase and networking structures expand the function of the transit space is to be evaluated and reconsidered. In the act of people becoming more mobile the everyday transit spaces become infrastructural nerve centers where multiple social groups intersection. This propounds a potential of transit spaces to become public “free-zones” for people to socialize, interact and mingle. Revitalizing transit spaces to places where people can socialize extends the experience of the travel, creating a more smooth and cohesive journey. However it can be discussed to which extend we as travelers want strictly flowing and simultaneous mobility chains. If city life can be interpreted as a theater then it is perhaps the surprise of everyday ventures that create the excitement and drama that makes our journeys become fun and pleasure enlarging that the movement from A to B becomes something substantial in our lives.

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Theories of the Network City and its Technologies

Anne Sofie Elgaard Sørensen

Bibliography | Jensen, O.B. 2016, ‘Of ’other’ materialities: why (mobilities) design is central to the future of mobilties research’, MOBILITIES, Vol. 11, no. 4,587-597 Jensen, O.B. 2013, Staging Mobilities (The International Library of Sociology), Routledge, Abingdon Kempf, P. 2013, ‘Pass it On – The Path is the Goal’, Journal of New Frontiers in Spatial Concepts, Vol. 5, no. 93-98 Kempf, P. 2009, You Are the City: Observation, Organization and Transformation of Urban Settings, Lars Muller Publishers Lawson, B. 2001, Language of Space, Taylor & Francis Ltd Lynch, K. 1960, The Image of the City, MIT Press, Boston Lynch, K. 1981, A Theory of Good City Form, MIT Press, Boston Lynch, K. 1990, City Sense and City Design: Writings and Projects of Kevin Lynch, MIT Press, Boston Simmel, G. 1903, The Metropolis and Mental Life, Free Press, New York Systime, 2018, ‘Erving Goffman’, 8.4 Socialisering og identitet i informationssamfundet, viewed 25 February 2018, link: https:// samfundsfag-c.systime.dk/index.php?id=640

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