Archinect - News

SOM unveils new bus shelter designs for a more equitable future LA

2024-07-07T08:00:00-04:00

Skidmore, Owings & Merrill has shared photos of its new bus shelter designs for the City of Los Angeles.

The LA STAP (short for Sidewalk and Transit Amenities Program) shelters are the first prototype designs for the initiative that will eventually install 3,000 shelters and 450 shade structures in need-based locations across Los Angeles over the next decade. Officials from the city's Bureau of Street Services (aka StreetsLA) met in Tarzana last month to preview the designs.

Image: James Michael Juarez © SOM

There, they bore witness to what will eventually be unique new additions to the city's visual landscape. Another 250 total are expected to be installed by June 2025.

Image: James Michael Juarez © SOM

The configurable designs are said to be inspired by the California Modernism movement and will display a digital art program and feature smart lighting technology.

Image: James Michael Juarez © SOM

Leading the contract for STAP is Tranzito-Vector, a joint venture between smart mobi...

Polish transport center with tree-trunk inspired columns completed by Tremend Architecture Studio

2024-02-22T11:47:00-05:00

Warsaw-based Tremend Architecture Studio has completed a transport center in the Polish city of Lublin, described by the team as “one of the most environmentally friendly developments of its kind in Poland.” In addition to its signature canopied platforms for urban and regional bus transport, the scheme contains underground car parking, taxi bays, cycle infrastructure, and a public roof garden.

Image credit: Alek Malachowski

Located near the city’s historic 19th-century railway station, the design approach for the new transport center sought to “blend in with the urban and architectural context of the place” while also serving as an act of renewal for the post-industrial area. The resulting project was envisioned as a simple, modernist pavilion to contrast with the eclectic style of the railway station, “remaining unchallenging of it, thanks to its clearly different architectural language.”

Image credit: Alek Malachowski

Image credit: Rafal Chojnacki

The s...

This anonymous L.A. artist is installing new bus-stop benches in the city's Eastside

2018-11-28T15:18:00-05:00

Some of his benches have become part of the fabric of the city — sat on and rained on, captured on Google Street View and even vandalized. Scrawled in tidy handwriting on one bench was, “i love it, thank you,” punctuated by a small heart. His greatest frustration is that whoever is removing them is leaving bus riders with no place to sit. The benches and their removal get at one of the more byzantine corners of transit bureaucracy in Los Angeles.

Realizing he had no place to rest at the bus stop near his Eastside home while recovering from a knee injury, this anonymous Los Angeles artist took matters into his own hands and began installing benches at neglected bus stops around the area, Carolina Miranda writes. Unsurprisingly, some of his benches have been removed, shedding light on L.A.'s frustratingly tedious process to approve the installation of more bus benches and shelters.

America’s Sorriest Bus Stop: Vancouver 'wins' this year's contest

2018-09-19T14:48:00-04:00

It’s official! The sorriest bus stop in America is in … Canada! The horrendous bus stop on the Lougheed Highway in Pitt Meadows, just outside of Vancouver, has won our annual contest, trouncing Cincinnati in a 58%-42% landslide.

Streetsblog has announced the 'winner' of its annual America’s Sorriest Bus Stop tournament, and it's an impressively desolate and pedestrian-inadequate spot on a highway outside of Vancouver, BC that gets to take home the crown this year.

Congrats on the 2nd place: Daly Road in Springfield Township, near Cincinnati. Image via streetsblog.com.

The competition was fierce, and many other contenders across North America stunned with glaringly unsafe conditions right along busy roads, omission of sidewalks, lack of benches and shelter from the elements, and absence of traffic lights or pedestrian crosswalk to reach these bus spots.

This bus stop at 9907 Sunset Boulevard in Beverly Hills sits in one of the nation's wealthiest ZIP codes, yet the domestic workers taking the bus from here have to run for their lives to reach it. Image via streetsblog.com.

Explore the full list of Sorriest Bus Stop contenders here.

America’s Sorriest Bus Stop tournament enters final round: it's Kansas City, MO vs. Silver Spring, MD

2016-08-05T14:28:00-04:00

Each of the 16 bus stops that competed this year — and the agencies who oversee them — deserved a thorough shaming. No transit rider should ever have to wait in the rain for a bus with no posted schedule, or walk in a ditch along an eight-lane highway after disembarking. These conditions are deplorable but all too common in American cities. The two bus stops facing off today — in Kansas City and Silver Spring [...]— had some extra dreadful quality that sets them apart in the eyes of our voters.

Homey pop-up bus shelter hopes to increase safety for Minneapolis commuters

2015-10-29T17:25:00-04:00

Minus a TV, a temporary bus shelter at S. 6th Street and the Nicollet Mall in downtown Minneapolis has most of the cozy comforts of your living room: pillows, books, board games, a clock, a rug and string lighting. [...] High-traffic bus stops can be flash points for safety concerns, and projects like Living Room Station represent an opportunity to bring in creative thinkers and builders to improve the experiences for riders, passersby and neighbors