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Bus shelters don't have to be boring...
Everything in the world that is manmade has been designed. Buildings, cars, knives & forks, phones, books, signs, bridges, chairs, packaging... somebody had to decide how each of these things should look before they could be made. "Design" is, literally, all around us.
Museums are filled with things that were designed. And though we talk about the "art" of previous eras, most of the "beautiful" things we find in museums were ordinary, everyday objects. A chair, an incense burner, a candlestick, a wine jug.
But we seem to have forgotten that ordinary things can be beautiful — and if not beautiful, at least interesting, charming, characterful, and not ugly. Take "street furniture" — lights, signs, bins, benches, and... bus shelters. We tend to think of them as "ugly but necessary".
The most important thing for any bus shelter is that it works: protects you from rain, perhaps keeps you warm, has any necessary timetables, and doesn't fall down. But none of this means a bus shelter can't be designed to have an aesthetic character of some sort.
Bus shelters don't have to be insipid metal and glass boxes pasted with adverts; and there is an argument to be made that they *shouldn't* be. Aesthetics are not merely a frivolous, unnecessary bonus in society; they are a vital force for improving the quality of our lives.
How to improve bus shelters? Well, for one, they are an ideal location for public art. A painting, a sculpture, or even a poem can change a bus shelter from an "ugly but necessary" place into something interesting, even without changing their overall design.
There are also plenty of whimsical bus shelters in the world. All it takes is a little bit of imagination, and suddenly bus shelters aren't blights on the streetscape — it turns out something as ostensibly boring as a bus shelter... can make us smile.
Not all bus shelters need to be miniature public art galleries or oversized fruits. Sometimes it is about the materials you use: bricks, wood, stonework, cast iron, and so on. We need bus shelters, so why not make them charming additions to our streets?
Sometimes all it takes is the addition of a little colour for something which would have been lifeless to become, in some small but meaningful way, aesthetically pleasing. This isn't about making bus shelters into works of art; it is about a minimum level of aesthetic character.
And there lies the crux of the matter. Bus shelters, if we endeavour to make them non-boring, can actually add to their urban environment rather than detract from it. A realisation which feels more shocking than it ought to be.
Consider this old tram stop. The trams no longer run, but the stop has been converted into a bench. Why? Not because it is a masterpiece of art or an eye-catching architectural fancy by some famous designer. It is simply *nice*; it adds character and charm to the street.
A good comparison here would be the famous red phone boxes designed by Sir Giles Gilbert Scott. Even when phone boxes became redundant people wanted to keep them; they were more than "ugly but necessary" bits of street furniture. Unlike, perhaps, their replacements...
The important thing about Scott's phone boxes is that they had a simple design and were mass-manufactured. People may say, "non-boring bus shelters would be nice, but they will cost money!" Well, why not mass produce non-boring bus shelters for the same price we already pay?
So that's one solution to the problem of cost. Perhaps all we need is to find a simple but aesthetically pleasing bus shelter design and mass-produce *that* instead of... this sort of thing. A shelter designed so that, even it becomes redundant, people want to keep it around.
But even if non-boring bus shelters cost more money, they will be worth the investment. Because the total economic cost of boring and oppressive urban environments, and their consequences for human happiness and health and productivity, is colossal.
How much would you pay for a happier, healthier, and more productive population? Bus shelters won't fix that alone, but more considerate, interesting, and characterful street furniture might be a good place to start. Better urban design always pays for itself in the end.
The point is that ordinary things don't have to be ugly and boring, and our cities will be improved when we realise this — and act on that realisation. Bus shelters can make cities *more* beautiful; they can *add* character; they can exhibit public art; they can make us smile.
This bus shelter in Barnoldswick, the UK, was installed less than twenty years ago, with the addition of a bespoke clock. It has become an object of local pride, just like Scott's phone boxes — that is what good street furniture can become! Function and form united.
And, in addition, it's worth remembering what William Morris said on this subject. "More interesting" street furniture doesn't only benefit the public who must use that street furniture; it also benefits the people who make and build it by making their work more interesting.
