You probably already know the “15 minutes city”. Highlighted by Paris, the concept aims to design the city in order to meet all the basic needs within a 15-minute radius on foot or by bike. But the swedes came to the even more local concept: the One-minute city!
The ambition of the concept is to focus on single streets and the life playing on them to create people-friendly spaces. It is the scale of the local community. Where you meet your neighbors around the corner, in the shared gardens, or at the cafe. It is also where you find shared services such as kindergarten, bike-sharing hubs, or energy microgrids.
Mixed with tactical urbanism, the logic is put into practice by the Street move program. Piloted in Stockholm and two other Swedish cities, it gives local people the power to decide how much street space is reserved for parking and for public use. Physically, it takes the form of a striking piece of street furniture, designed by sweden’s national center for architecture and design: a Parklet. Installed on vacant parking spaces the wooden platform is modular. It can take various forms: a terrasse, an urban garden, an outdoor gym, a children’s playground, a charging station for electric cars, or a bike and scooters parking spot.
The concept and the program already showed their benefits: empowerment of city dwellers, drop in emissions, encouragement of physical activity, and economies in healthcare costs. This success pushed Street Moves to be implemented nationwide to make every street in Sweden sustainable and vibrant by 2030.
