Urban Hubs: Closing the Space, Time, Continuum

“It is known that the names of places change as many times as there are foreign languages: and that every place can be reached from other places, by the most various roads and routes by those who ride, or drive, or row, or fly.”

Italo Calvino, Invisible Cities

In this thesis, I will be exploring the role that architecture and urban design can play in transforming human behavior. I will develop the idea of a multi faceted transportation hub as a means to encourage people to use alternative modes of transportation, and through that development, evaluate influence fields as a mechanism for movement. In the United States, human behavior has proven to be a limiting factor in the construction of alternative transportation infrastructure. The increased desire to exercise on a treadmill or a stationary bike and inability to ride or walk to work illustrates how much people covet automobiles. The promotion of personal automobiles over the last century has been a major determining factor in the lack of established mass transit infrastructure. However, it is very hard to miss the expansive highway infrastructure and the problems that increased vehicle traffic has on accessibility and mobility. Many people in the US realize that the concept of accessibility and mobility is essential to maintaining a healthy and vibrant urban core. In Nashville, TN, construction has begun on a rail system to move suburban commuters into the city along major corridors. The question, Will people use it once it has proven to expedite commuting time and cost?

As a case study, I will look at the urban creation surrounding a transportation hub in Lille, France. Rem Koolhaas and OMA were the master planners for Euralille, the “city-within-a city” surrounding a TGV station. Euralille has become a major area of convergence in Europe and has become the catalyst for revitalization for a defunct industrial town.

Rotterdam, Holland has also become a modern model for infrastructural developments. By limiting automobile traffic, the plazas are teaming with pedestrians, bikes, and whisper light rail tracks embedded in the pavers. These transportation “hubs” exist, as more and more infrastructural planning links multiple modes of transportation throughout the city. I will examine the relationship of these developments and the growth of urban areas into a cityscape “defined by waterways, bridges, streets, arterial canals, avenues, and a rhomboid motorway system- together forming the backbone of the city’s structure.” These relationships will serve as a reference to interesting urban spaces and the people who choose to inhabit these spaces.

Finally, I will prove that Human behavior will only be altered by increasing the positive experience towards a destination to a level comparable to the experience at the destination itself. It will prove this by exploring the spaces created by the convergence of the many different transportation systems and the quality of experience grained through myriad chance encounters.

“Every story is a travel story – a spatial practice.”(Breathing cities)