# LIVING STREETS_design toward streets as places
"We can’t simultaneously promote walking and bicycling, while continuing to facilitate driving." - Albert Einstein
Feeling safe when we and our children make use of the road is a basic need. But often this need of security induces attitudes of closure that effectively reduce the quality of urban life.
Alternative strategies seek out security in a more open and participatory enjoyment of urban activities. A number of studies paradoxically affirms that the presence of pedestrians on streets causes drivers to travel more slowly. More people on the streets leads to improved safety.
But in the course of time, traffic has obtained a predominant influence on the use of streets. People, as users of public space, have been reduced to a small part of the system. With design we can shift the lay-out of the urban roads to a predominant walking use.
By intervening with design in the domain of infrastructures, and people’s behaviour, this project addresses the integration of traffic with other forms of human activity.
Taking advantage of new road safety regulations, design can transform streets into places that welcome people’s presence.
Design thinking as a creative process can bring new approaches to the use of public space and open new paths for urban design.
