Public Interactive Spaces: London Underground King’s Cross St. Pancras Station
Rohit Raka
Public Interactive Spaces: London Underground King’s Cross St. Pancras Station
Rohit Raka
Contents
• Topic
• Page No.
Abstract • About the topic • Man: A Social Animal • London and its Public Realm
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1. Introduction 1.1. Public Interactive Everyday Spaces 1.2. Proxemics
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2. The Project 2.1. Introduction to London Underground and King’s Cross St. Pancras Station. 2.2. Types of Activities Observed 2.3. Observations of the proxemics at the station 2.4. Crowd + Stress = Mob
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3. Critical Appraisal
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4. Conclusion
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5. References
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Abstract: About the topic: I belong to a country where the railway network forms a complex and an indispensable transportation linkage. Since my childhood I have always been fascinated with the trains and how travelling from one state to another was a great social and cultural transformation. Over the years, this transformation during the journey has helped me to understand and learn about people from different parts of the country and their proxemics. It has also helped me to realize that the proxemics not only differs from person to person but also from culture to culture. Like India, London too as a city is culturally diverse yet tolerant towards all the people around the world. The activities are carried out in cohesion and the city’s ability to balance entire ethnic diversity is significant. Having stated that, travelling through the London Underground at times becomes a mundane, banal and a tedious experience due to lack of public interaction. Though large numbers of individuals are present at a given point of time but the contacts are less comprehensive. This case study thus majorly focuses on the study of human social behavior on the London Underground, King’s Cross St. Pancras station to be specific. The idea is to understand the term public in the public space through which conclusions may be drawn to help find appropriate solutions for better human interaction within the spaces of its kind.
Man: A social animal The Greek philosopher, Aristotle once stated that, “Man by nature is a social animal; an individual who is unsocial naturally and not accidentally is either beneath our notice or is more than human.” We as humans always rely on each other or on the environment for our necessities and well-being. Humans are placed at the peak of the pyramid of the social interaction and communication amongst numerous other categories. Although at the break of 21st century in the digital age where media plays a profound role in our lives, we majorly connected to each other through emails, telephones etc. These interactions are superficial and thus are less comprehensive. We have withdrawn ourselves from the physical environment. As city modernizes we head towards the segregation of social, economic, cultural, political and economic activities, information of which can now be accessed from home. This has led to the decline in the use of public interactive spaces. It has always been said in the past and also in the modern day times that spaces are shaped by people. Thus it is important to study human social behavior so that urban designers and planners can establish basic appropriate if not accurate rules while designing a space which would in turn cater to people’s ability to adapt to an environment.
London and its public realm London is one of the most diverse cities in the world, wherein 37% of the existing population was born outside the U.K. The city seems to function swiftly besides its multicultural and multilingual background. People reside together, travel together and work together. Due to this diversity the chances of public interaction has better opportunity to survive, but is it really that case?
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Pie diagram denoting ethnic groups in London
1,265 billion people travel by London Underground every year. The number of Tube stations has grown from 5 in 1863 to 2014. The tube obviously seems to serve the purpose of taking people to their work, home, entertainment etc. but are there any opportunities for public interaction? This case study paper on King’s Cross St. Pancras underground station focuses on analyzing and illustrating the human behavior at the Tube station and on the Tube. The research would thus look into whether urban quasipublic spaces like the Tube and Tube station can cater to public interaction. The opportunity of large number of people with no network on the phone seems to be of the rare and the London Underground is one of the few.
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Public Interactive Spaces: London Underground
1. Introduction:
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To set the principles for the public interaction it is essential to understand two basic ideologies: • Public interactive everyday spaces and • Proxemics
1.1. Public Interactive Everyday Spaces Public spaces are democratic social spaces which allow individuals with similar or different backgrounds to coexist together by granting access to variety of range of people. These spaces help people to come in contact with each other where modes of contacts can either be of lower intensity or highly comprehensive depending upon the situation and behavior of an individual. Quality of and character of any public space can be judged by the type of activities carried out in the space. Jan Ghel, Danish architect and urban designer categorized these activities into three types. • Necessary activities, • Optional activities and • Social activities. As the quality of space improves, activities that are more intense occur frequently. Everyday spaces serve as a backbone for the urban social fabric providing sustenance to an urban city. Since everyday spaces like pedestrians, buses, tubes, neighborhoods, are used by the people on regular basis it helps generate a social relation and feeling of belonging to that space. We thus use expressions like “My bus is here”, “I was walking in my neighborhood”. Although these everyday spaces are used by numerous other people we attribute it as ‘Mine’ or ‘Ours’ while talking to someone who is not from the same background. Everyday spaces help the users to come in contact with each other frequently which eventually help them to manifest contacts which are more comprehensive in return providing the users with restorative benefits by alleviating stress. Thus the better quality of everyday space helps to foster a social character of the community by transforming individual’s mundane and mellow life into socially active one.
Jan Ghel’s relationship column between types of activities
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Public Interactive Spaces: London Underground
1.2. Proxemics Though we attribute ourselves as social animal, we all have our own personal space bubble. We treat each individual around us differently in terms of this personal space bubble. We keep our friends and family closer while the unknowns distant unless we are ought to do the opposite. Edward.T.Hall, an American anthropologist and cross cultural researcher introduced the term ‘proxemics’ in the year 1963 to describe this phenomenon. Depending upon the people around us he categorized proxemics distance into four types. These distances are as follows: 1. Intimate distance(0 inches to 18 inches): As the word would suggest this zone is for our loved ones. At such short distance human vision is blurred and hearing ability is intense and clear thus whisper is the method of communication. The language of the space can also be critiqued on the basis of touch, smell and body heat. 2. Personal distance(18 inches to 4 feet): This zone is for our family and friends. At this distance an individual loses the ability to sense body heat. Communication can clearly be carried out though vision and hearing ability. 3. Social distance( 4 feet to 10 feet): Social distance is for people gathered in an environment for similar purpose. It is easy to establish new social contacts in this zone but is easy to ignore an individual. 4. Public distance( 10 feet to infinity): This zone is for people around us on a larger space. Characteristics of the space can be judged by blurred eyesight where communication carried out by us is in third person.
Edward T Hall, Proxemics
Proxemics are affected through various factors including personal behavior, environment, situation and condition of the space, culture etc. In a public space people are compelled to invade personal space this leads to reactions from individuals which helps to judge personality of an individual. Though distance violation is highly ambiguous in modern day times understanding basic behavioral ideologies helps to determine the principles of any urban quasi-public everyday space by establishing a specific non-verbal language within that space. 5
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2. The Topic: 2.1. King’s Cross St. Pancras Station:
London Underground is one of the most revolutionary transit systems of the modern day times. Besides allowing the commuters to travel around the city and to the outskirts, it also serves the purpose of urban social landmark by engaging the people in other activities like shopping, eating and interacting. As per 2012/2013 demographics the 402Kilimeters of the London Underground railway network carried 1.23 billion passengers making it 12th busiest transit system in the world. King’s Cross Station is a complex transit junction of railway station, underground station, international railway station and bus station, thus is used by variety of range of people. Like all underground station the number of commuters accessing the tube differs, depending upon the time of the day, time of the year and other transport conditions.
King’s Cross St. Pancras Tube lines
London is one of the fastest growing cities in the world with numerous people migrating every day for jobs, tourism, entertainment etc. Increase in the population and fast evolving life style of the citizens affect the transport system directly. Though London Underground is a highly organized system, Transport for London has to deal with numerous technical and social problems every day. The effective positive growth of the city is only possible by making life of Londoners organized and less chaotic. Thus, there is a desperate need to bring this situation under control, which can be possibly achieved by imbibing value of tolerance amongst the commuters as productivity of any public space is depended on the well-being of the people using it. Engaging people into social interaction starting from less comprehensive to more intense and meaningful communication may help manifest crowd control and its function effectively. Various factors affect the establishment of social interaction. This case study research paper focuses on two important factors: A. To analyze types of activities carried out at the King’s Cross Underground Station. B. Understanding the proxemics and the affecting factors on the London Underground station and in the Tube. C. Understanding collective behavior of the crowd to avoid their transformation into a mob.
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Public Interactive Spaces: London Underground
The Following part of this case study research paper describes the observations made during the visit to the King’s Cross St. Pancras Underground Station. The critical analysis of these phenomenon was important to eventually draw on the conclusions to help establish principles for social interaction.
2.2. Types of activities: The activities types of activities carried out at the King’s Cross St. Pancras Underground Station based on Jan Ghel’s category of activities are described as below: 1. Necessary Activities: These were the activities which commuters were bound to perform. Entering the tube station, crossing the barricades using travel pass or travel card, queuing to use the escalator, walking towards the respective platforms. These activities were performed in specific order following specific code of conduct.
People entering Tube Station, Necessary activity
2. Optional Activities: These activities included eating at the platform or in the tube, reading a book or listening to the music at the platform or in the tube. These activities are carried out for self-entertainment and to distract themselves from existing physical environment.
People reading books and listening to music, Optional activities
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Public Interactive Spaces: London Underground
Social Activities: This category included interacting of the commuters with the station master regarding Tube timings and schedule, discussing with friends or colleagues about entertainment or work etc.
Interaction, Social activity
The social activities were the resultant of necessary and optional activities. Better opportunities for social activities were only possible when the physical environment at the station was favorable enough for them to strive.
2.3. Observation of proxemics of the people: To understand the collective behavior of the crowd observations regarding proxemics of the commuters was to be made. It was noticed that various factors affect the behavior of an individual in the crowd. The factors and observations are described below: A) Gender: Women were more emotionally expressive while men were more territorial in terms of interaction. Three types of groups were observed for this category. Type A: Group of women commuters. Type B: Group of men commuters. Type C: Group of mixed gender commuters. Communication within group ‘A’ seemed to be more comprehensive and expressive. Women expressed their feelings out loud and were not very conscious about it. Communication within group ‘B’ (considering the men taking part in the conversation knew each other) was carried out in a subtle way with low physical contact, the friend zone distance was maintained and the eye contact was not continuous. For communication within the group ‘C’, the interaction between the genders of opposite sex was more intense and the conversation was mainly guided by the woman.
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Public Interactive Spaces: London Underground
Type A group
Type B group
Type C group
B) Culture: Though culture affects the kind of interaction and the proxemics of the people greatly, in a city like London where people belong to different cultural background the code of conduct of any particular culture to be observed is rare. Most of the people have similar way of conducting themselves like that of others and the crowd seems to be functioning in unison. Though minor cultural observations could be made described as below: Situation 1: A middle age Arabic woman in her Burqa while walking pass two groups at the platform took a longer route avoiding the two groups to reach the stairs at the station. Situation 2: On the other hand a middle age English working women took a straight convenient route not letting the two groups on the way affecting her circulation pattern to reach the stairs at the platform.
Group 2
Group 1
Circulation pattern of middle aged Arabic woman
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Public Interactive Spaces: London Underground
Group 2
Circulation pattern of middle aged English woman
Group 1
C) Status The observation regarding this was made during off peak hours on the station and in the Tube. A business official (dressed in formal clothes) stood right ahead at the yellow line allowing other commuters to pass by from behind while doing so he engaged himself into reading the paper, patiently waiting for the train to arrive. After getting inside the tube he calmly walked towards a seat and continued reading the paper. On the other hand a handy man (dressed in his neon jacket) got inside the tube and chose to stand instead waiting by the door despite of the availability of the seat.
The business official got down after two stops while the hand man at the last station. People who belong to the higher group of society acquire comfort by taking action suitable for them, while others seem to get intimated by the former thus keeping the safe distance. D) Situation The collective behavior of the crowd observed during the entire day differed greatly. During the off peak hours, people kept their calm and carried out the activities patiently, on the other hand, during rush hours with average number of crowd participated in using the train and the platform rushed themselves to carry out their activities and also engaged themselves by carrying out optional activities like reading, listening to music, interacting with fellow commuters. During rush hour when the number of people higher than the usual caused great chaos obstructing the activities of the fellow commuters greatly. When numerous people are placed in an enclosed space, they intrude each other’s personal space bubble (even though done unintentionally) make people conscious about the way they behave, but cramping the space with even more larger amount of people disrupts the entire functioning of the crowd causing losing of self-identity and thus causing the chaos.
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Public Interactive Spaces: London Underground
Off peak hours in Hammersmith and City Line
Rush hours in Hammersmith and City Line
E) Age: For this category school kids of age 5 years to 10 years were observed on the tube and the station. Children of this age are less cautious about their behavior and thus were more expressive. Their activities were more prominent and comprehensive. When people with older age group were observed their interaction was less intense and calmer. During weekends interaction between the youngsters is more intense, loud and comprehensive. The above observation made and conclusions drawn were solely based on my interpretation and application of the studied theories into the space. Though the behavior is relative depending upon the situation and personality it is was important to understand and observe basic behavioral typology of the people at the station and in the tube from which conclusions may be drawn to set principles which would help establish human interaction at King’s Cross St. Pancras Underground Station.
3.4. Crowd + Stress = Mob Crowd is a large number of people gathered together at a same place. Amongst these people miscellaneous set of behavior can be observed which are described as collective behavior of the people which engage people in the activities they carry out in the public. These activities may either be spontaneous or structured activities but are relative and can differ as per the situation of the physical environment or individual personality. Casual Crowd: People who happen to be at the same place at the same time. Physical location is the only common factor and thus people together don’t have long term goals t achieve together. Conventional Crowd: These people too do not have long term goals but gather together for a specific purpose. Expressive Crowd: People who gather together to express their emotion without affecting their physical environment are expressive crowd. Acting Crowd: These category of people who gather together to cause destruction to the property or o the fellow users. These people can also be described as Mob. 11
Public Interactive Spaces: London Underground
As mentioned earlier that we all have our own personal space bubble and that we divide space around us into different zone. In a crowded situation, unknown people enter our personal zone, though we are aware that this violation is not done on purpose and is unintentional, we as human try to subconsciously balance the situation by carrying out following actions Avoiding eye contact Limit our movements and jesters We turn away from the individual who enter our personal space We get into defensive position (fold our arms, frown, carry blank expression etc.) We stop the conversation entirely These actions too are relative and change depending upon social situation, personality, gender, purpose, intension etc. As long as the amount of crowd is of decent and manageable in number, violating personal space can be managed by carrying out above mentioned activities but as number of crowd increases even more in a space this causes increase in the stress amongst people affecting their behavioral pattern greatly. The increase in the stress leads to frustration making it difficult to carry out the activities in the space.
Yerk’s Dodson’s Law
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Public Interactive Spaces: London Underground
3. Critical Appraisal:
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Stress caused by the space violation till a point is effective enough to boost the performance of the crowd till a certain point. This stress caused in a social zone of an individual can encourage public interaction on the London Underground. London Underground is the heart of city’s urban community where commuters use this quasi-public space on regular basis as the means of transportation. Stress caused beyond a certain point causes major disruption in commuters life.
All types of stressors generate in the environment of the sort 1. Time Pressure 2. Positional stressor (Fire) 3. Environmental stressor ( noise, heat) 4. Interpersonal stressor (crowding and violation of personal space) This stresses not only hampers the effective functioning and the purpose of the London Underground but also affects the way people feel in that space. The stresses caused within the commuters has led to many mishaps in the past. Recently published incidents by ‘Evening Standard’ describes the diabolical events that took place at London Bridge Station causing the ruckus due to over-crowding which led to the delay in functioning of the trains and also vandalism of the property.
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Public Interactive Spaces: London Underground
2. Conclusion:
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Public interaction has its restorative benefits by alleviating stress amongst the people. It helps in raising people’s spirit and has its own social and therapeutic properties on the users of the space. Many spontaneous or structured incidents have taken in the past which has helped to establish interaction amongst the commuters on the London Underground.
1. Out of the Blue (OOTB), Oxford's all-male a cappella group performed ‘Let it snow’ in the tube leaving commuters present with a happy cheerful Christmas spirit.
2. The Swingle Singers - Grammy award winning a cappella group participated in T-Mobile flash mob at Heathrow T5 for "Welcome Home" surprise passengers on the underground with the Austin Powers theme tune 'Soul Bossa Nova' which was also featured on the hit TV show GLEE!
3. Bath4banks organized a n event at bank station
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Public Interactive Spaces: London Underground
4. For the promotion of new T.V. show called fortitude , the director used designed Polar bear at the Underground Station.
Public Interaction of any means is always helpful to uplift social and community well being of the city. If the interaction (either spontaneous or structured ) is imbibed amongst the commuters, it would not only help the easy and swift functioning on London Underground but will also help the better development of London as an urban city.
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Public Interactive Spaces: London Underground
2. References:
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1. Ceicil, Nicholas, Ben Morgan, and Matt Watts. 'Stop The Crush At London Bridge'. Evening Statndard2015: 4 and 5. Print. 2. Edwards, Brian. The Modern Station. London: E & FN Spon, 1997. Print. 3. Gallacher, Pauline. Everyday Spaces. London: Thomas Telford, 2005. Print. 4. Gehl, Jan. Life Between Buildings. Washington, DC: Island Press, 2011. Print. 5. Hall, Edward T. The Hidden Dimension. Garden City, N.Y.: Doubleday, 1966. Print. 6. Hinkel, Rochus Urban, and Suzie Attiwill. Urban Interior. Baunach, Germany: Spurbuchverlag, 2011. Print. 7. Smelser, Neil J. Theory Of Collective Behavior. New York: Free Press of Glencoe, 1963. Print. 8. YouTube,. 'Interactive Simulation Of Dynamic Crowd Behaviors Using General Adaptation Syndrome Theory'. N.p., 2015. Web. 18 Mar. 2015. 9. YouTube,. 'Let It Snow Christmas Flashmob (London Underground) - Out Of The Blue'. N.p., 2015. Web. 18 Mar. 2015. 10. YouTube,. 'Swingle Singers Underground Tube Subway'. N.p., 2015. Web. 18 Mar. 2015.
List of Pictures and diagrams: 1. Pie diagram denoting ethnic groups in London 2. Jan Ghel’s relationship column between types of activities 3. King’s Cross St. Pancras Tube lines 4. People entering Tube Station, Necessary activity 5. People reading books and listening to music, Optional activities 6. Interaction, Social activity 7. Gender Proxemics 8. Cultural Proxemics 9. Proxemics in terms of rush hours and off peak hours 10. Yerk’s Dodson’s Law 11. Articles published in Evening Standard 12. Out of the blue on London Underground 13. Swingle singers on London Underground 14. Bath4banks at Bank station 15. Promotional Polar bear at St. Paul’s Station
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