about Street Moves

Rendering by LundbergDesign.

Street Moves is an innovative project that transforms our shared street spaces through design. By collaborating with municipalities, design teams, and citizens, the project creates groundbreaking street solutions. At the same time, it develops site-specific methods and tools for the involved stakeholders, enhancing their ability to adapt and leading to better-calibrated infrastructure projects in the long run. The ultimate goal is to make all of Sweden’s streets sustainable, healthy, and vibrant by 2030.

Street Moves is led by ArkDes, the Swedish Centre for Architecture and Design, and is funded by Vinnova, Sweden’s innovation agency. ArkDes has been tasked by the government to monitor the national architecture and design policy goals outlined in the “Policy for Designed Living Environment” and to ensure these goals are met. To create and maintain environments that are sustainable, inclusive, aesthetically pleasing, and functional for people to live in, it’s essential to bring together diverse perspectives and expertise. This is why ArkDes conducts practice-based research projects like Street Moves. Through these projects, various locations and perspectives are explored, aiming to discover methods and opportunities to shape the societies of the future through design.

Sweden aims to meet the goals of Agenda 2030 and achieve net-zero fossil fuel emissions by 2045. In this effort, public actors are expected to set an exemplary standard. We need new tools to quickly test what works, and Street Moves employs site-specific, inclusive, and exploratory design processes to experiment with new ways to meet these challenges and design streets that aren’t centered around cars.

Street Moves was preceded by extensive strategic work by Sweden’s Innovation Agency. The preliminary work showed a need to develop a modular solution to enable a rapid transition, from car-dominated streets to surfaces that are more open and versatile, people-centred, green and clean. The design project, originally called ‘Slow streets, fast cities – designing infrastructure for mobility and public life’, was renamed Street Moves under ArkDes’ leadership and started in the spring of 2020. During 2020-2021, ArkDes, together with LundbergDesign, and an expert group including Sweden´s Innovation Agency and the Swedish Transport Agency, designed a modular solution for the street. The modules, which were tested on streets in Stockholm, Gothenburg and Helsingborg, consist of a base plate in glued laminated timber with adaptable parts that can contain everything from parking for electric scooters to outdoor fitness equipment, seating areas and planter boxes.

The project has since expanded to more municipalities across Sweden. Knowledge and methods from previous Street Moves processes are continuously integrated to achieve more efficient processes and results. So far, Street Moves has transformed street spaces in collaboration with seven municipalities: Hultsfred, Härnösand, Södertälje, Gothenburg, Helsingborg, Umeå, and Stockholm. A total of six different design teams have been involved. The successful outcomes have even led to the methods being tested in San Jose, California, in November 2023.

Street Moves allows for the rapid and cost-effective development and transformation of street spaces without making permanent alterations. Simultaneously, multiple stakeholders are involved in the dialogue on how the streets of the future can be designed. The temporary street solutions enable the engagement of residents, allowing them to explore and test what works through prototypes on the street. In this way, the transformation of our shared street spaces begins, one street at a time, until all of Sweden’s streets are sustainable, healthy, and vibrant!

Street Moves is led by ArkDes and funded by Vinnova, Sweden’s Innovation Agency. It is part of Vinnova’s mission-based work with the goal of making all of Sweden’s streets sustainable, healthy, and vibrant by 2030.

Results and Lessons from Street Moves SECOND PHASE

In the second phase of Street Moves, which took place between 2022-2023, new street solutions were explored in Gothenburg, Helsingborg, Umeå, Härnösand, Hultsfred, and Södertälje. You can access the results and lessons learned through a summary report and a project film.

Production: Hugo Johansson, Studio Hugo AB. In Swedish.

Results and Lessons from Street Moves first Phase

In the first phase of Street Moves, which occurred between 2020-2021, new street solutions were explored in Stockholm, Gothenburg, and Helsingborg. You can access the results and lessons learned through a film, a manual, and a project report.