Street Moves

Street Moves is an innovation project that transforms our shared street spaces through design. Together with municipalities, design teams and citizens, Street Moves designs innovative street solutions while developing site-specific methods and tools and increasing the adaptive capacity of the actors involved.

Street Moves was led by ArkDes and funded by Vinnova, Sweden’s innovation agency, as part of the mission to make all of Sweden’s streets sustainable, healthy and vibrant by 2030. Sweden’s ambition is to meet the goals of the 2030 Agenda, as well as to achieve net zero emissions of fossil fuels by 2045. In this work, public actors must act as role models. We need new tools to test what works, and we need to do it fast. Street Moves uses site-specific, inclusive and exploratory design processes to test new ways of addressing these challenges and designing street spaces that are not designed centred around cars.

Street Moves started in the spring of 2020, and during the spring and summer, ArkDes worked with LundbergDesign to design a modular solution for the street. The modules, which were tested on streets in Stockholm, Gothenburg and Helsingborg, consist of a base plate in glulam with adaptable parts that can contain everything from parking for electric scooters to outdoor gyms, seating areas and grow boxes. The project has now spread to more municipalities across Sweden. Knowledge and methods from previous Street Moves processes are continuously woven in to achieve more effective processes and results.

Street Moves has transformed street spaces together with seven municipalities: Hultsfred, Härnösand, Södertälje, Gothenburg, Helsingborg, Umeå and Stockholm. The successful results led to the testing of Street Moves’ methods in San Jose, California, in November 2023.

‘Street Moves’ offers a rapid, cost-effective approach to transforming street spaces without disruptive roadwork. It fosters a multi-stakeholder dialogue about the future design of streets. Temporary street solutions, driven by community engagement and feedback, enable the exploration of public demand and the testing of concepts through street prototypes. This incremental approach is revolutionizing our shared urban streets, one at a time, towards achieving a sustainable, healthy, and lively urban landscape across Sweden.