Reinveting urban roundabouts in the era of autonomous vehicles
Team
Name: Chiyoung Park
Nationality: Republic of Korea
Institution / Company: Soongsil University, School of Architecture, Seoul / Assistant professor
Name: Sunkyu Lee
Nationality: Republic of Korea
Institution / Company: Soongsil University, School of Architecture, Seoul / Undergraduate (senior)
Name: Kitae Kim
Nationality: Republic of Korea
Institution / Company: Soongsil University, School of Architecture, Seoul / Undergraduate (senior)
Name: San Jang
Nationality: Republic of Korea
Institution / Company: Soongsil University, School of Architecture, Seoul / Undergraduate (senior)
-EDITORIAL PICK of Street of Tomorrow Competition
With the spread of autonomous, connected, electric, and shared vehicles in the near future, urban streets mostly occupied by conventional vehicles will be returned to people and nature, bringing opportunities for urban regeneration. The width of street will be reduced while sidewalk increased accordingly, creating an inclusive street environment with generous walking space adjacent to building frontages in urban area.
Urban intersections, in particular, will be transformed into a roundabout which is advantageous for autonomous vehicle operation, thereby reducing traffic accident rates, carbon dioxide emissions, and intersection maintenance costs. As a result, the number of circular traffic islands in the center of the intersection will inevitably increase. The circular traffic island, which was used only for limited purposes in the past to simply install sculptures, has a high possibility of being used in various ways in the future.
We propose design toolkit for roundabout in categories of: urban forest; green-blue-infrastructure; smart farm; media facade; smart parking; mobility hub; emergency management; waste-to-bioenergy; and local fulfilment. A single concept or a combination of multiple ideas of the toolkit could be applied to intersections in Seoul 2040.
#autonomous vehicle #shared mobility #urban regeneration through mobility nodes #roundabout
