Case study - Street Moves Hultsfred
A place-based design approach engaging more than 500 children and theatre actors in transforming and activating a shared public street.
Team
Suzanne Osten + Studio Doms +
Studio Era + Outer Space arkitekter
Client
ArkDes / Hultsfreds kommun
Sector
Urban development
Year
2022-2023
Street Moves became a full-scale experiment in redistributing public space — from traffic and parking towards a street that could also accommodate people, greenery, play and everyday social life.
Oskarsgatan before the transformation, autumn 2022. Cars were prioritized and a general feeling of unsafety after dark was expressed by many.
Photo credit: ArkDes / Viola Mellquist
Actors from Kalmar Byteater performing at the grand opening in May 2023. Oskarsgatan is now a place for people.
Photo credit: ArkDes / Viola Mellquist
Added value - Rethinking the everyday street
From backside to public space
Oskarsgatan sits in the centre of Hultsfred, close to the railway station and other important public spaces. Yet despite its central location, the street had gradually become something of a backside — a place associated more with passing through than with staying, and one that many residents perceived as unattractive and unsafe.
At the same time, the surrounding area was undergoing transformation. This created an opportunity to ask a different question. Rather than simply improving the street within its existing function, could we reconsider what the street was for?
Street Moves became a full-scale experiment in redistributing public space — from traffic and parking towards a street that could also accommodate people, greenery, play and everyday social life.
Oskarsgatan before the transformation, autumn 2022. Cars were prioritized and a general feeling of unsafety after dark was expressed by many.
The Design Process - Street Moves Hultsfred
A deep dive into the design process - A street as a testing ground!
Streets are among our most extensive public spaces, yet much of their design is determined by movement, parking and technical requirements. In Hultsfred — a small municipality where the car plays an important role in everyday mobility — challenging this established hierarchy was particularly relevant.
Rather than starting with a predetermined design, Oskarsgatan became a testing ground. What would happen if some of the space normally allocated to cars was given other purposes? Could a street become safer by attracting more people rather than simply controlling movement? Could it support social life, play, growing, reading and meeting — while still functioning as a street?
The ambition was not to remove mobility, but to renegotiate the balance between movement and life.
This eventually resulted in ten former parking spaces not being reinstated, while the street changed from a two-way road into a pedestrian-priority area with a one-way vehicle route through the new public space.
Oskarsgatan transformed into a pedestrian area, May 2023.
The Design Process - Street Moves Hultsfred
Designing with, not for
Instead of beginning at the drawing table, the project began with people.
Children and young people became particularly important participants in the process. Through workshops, conversations and hands-on activities, their experiences and ideas helped us understand Oskarsgatan from perspectives that are often underrepresented in conventional urban development.
But participation was deliberately broader than a single group. Residents, local businesses, municipal departments, schools, preschools and other local actors contributed different forms of knowledge about the street.
In total, an estimated 650 children and young people participated in the project — many of them actively involved in its implementation. Within the municipality, around 20 employees participated directly, with approximately another 20 following and contributing to the process.
The objective was not simply to ask people what they wanted. It was to make them part of finding out what the street could become.
High school teenagers participating in spontaneous workshop at one of the schools in Hultsfred.
Happy participants showing their engagement in Hultsfred.
The task was to pin point safe and unsafe areas in town. Black pins refers to unsafe places.
The task was to pin point safe and unsafe areas in town. White pins refers to safe and happy places.
Every pin got its own post it note explaining what kind of place or area the pin represents.
We visited the local youth center to play games and learn to know the kids in town.
Ping pong and pool as conversation starters.
We visited the local youth center to play games and learn to know the kids in town.
Local residents taking part in a workshop to imagine the future of Oskarsgatan. Many expressed a desire for places where people of different generations could meet and connect.
Suzanne Osten during a workshop session with local residents living adjacent to Oskarsgatan.
Local residents taking part in a workshop to imagine the future of Oskarsgatan. Many expressed a desire for places where people of different generations could meet and connect.
Suzanne Osten and local residents, mainly seniors, during a workshop session about Oskarsgatan.
Conversation with kids outside a local school about activities that are missing in Hultsfred.
Conversation with kids outside a local school about activities that are missing in Hultsfred.
Discussions about the future of Oskarsgatan during a public meeting in the town house.
The Design Process - Street Moves Hultsfred
Co-creation as a design tool - The process was the prototype
Street Moves challenged not only how a street could look, but how urban transformation itself could be organised.
The process moved between dialogue, site visits, needs analysis, sketching, expert feedback, reuse, construction, establishment and activation. Rather than following a linear sequence from brief to finished design, ideas were continuously tested, discussed and adjusted as new people and perspectives entered the project.
This required a different role from the design team. Less time was spent designing in isolation and more time was spent on site — talking, listening, finding materials, building relationships and responding to opportunities as they emerged.
For Hultsfred Municipality, this became one of the project’s most important outcomes. The process brought together municipal functions that had previously worked more separately and tested new forms of collaboration around public space. The number of municipal functions involved grew from three to six, bringing together perspectives including streets, planning, safety, sustainability, business and culture.
The street was the physical prototype. But the process was being prototyped too.
Site visit to a local garden centre to find plants for Oskarsgatan.
Choosing plants at the local garden centre.
One of all plants available.
Looking after usable resources at a former slaughterhouse destroyed by fire close to Oskarsgatan.
A lot of material to choose from at a former slaughterhouse destroyed by fire close to Oskarsgatan.
Conversation about material findings at the site of a former slaughterhouse destroyed by fire close to Oskarsgatan.
First sketches.
Sketching and conversing after a workshop in Hultsfred.
Could a winter green house be of interest?
Putting ideas on paper.
Side by side.
Sketching and conversing after a workshop in Hultsfred.
A debriefing at the townhouse with the design team, ArkDes and the municipal team.
A debriefing at the townhouse with the design team, ArkDes and the municipal team.
A debriefing at the townhouse with the design team, ArkDes and the municipal team.
A debriefing at the townhouse with the design team, ArkDes and the municipal team.
The Design Process - Street Moves Hultsfred
Building with what was already there
Instead of specifying an entirely new collection of products and materials, the project looked for resources that already existed.
Reused materials became part of the design language and part of the process itself. Materials already owned by the municipality could be given new functions, reducing both cost and resource use while allowing the project to develop through what was locally available.
This approach also opened the project to more participants. Local knowledge, municipal resources and practical skills became as important as conventional design expertise.
Reuse was therefore more than a sustainability strategy. It became a way of connecting the physical transformation of Oskarsgatan to the people and organisations around it.
The municipality later identified the extensive use of existing and reused materials as one of the project’s experiences particularly relevant to other places and municipalities.
Mapping resoruces for reuse from the municipal depot.
Mapping resoruces for reuse from the municipal depot.
Mapping resoruces for reuse from the municipal depot.
Mapping resoruces for reuse from the municipal depot.
Vintage furniture collection from in collaboration with local residents and businesses.
Close to one hundred chairs and 30 tables were collected for refurbishment and outdoor use.
The Design Process - Street Moves Hultsfred
80 metres of change
The transformation concentrated on a relatively short piece of Oskarsgatan.
Rather than filling the street with isolated objects, the intervention sought to establish a new rhythm along it — creating reasons to slow down, sit, meet, grow, balance, read or simply spend a little more time outside.
Furniture, planting and activities began to blur the conventional boundaries between carriageway, parking and public space. The previous speed limit of 50 km/h was replaced by a pedestrian-priority street regulated at walking speed — 7 km/h.
Greenery, previously virtually absent, became a significant part of the street. Two larger planted areas of approximately 35 m², nine planters and two large planting urns introduced vegetation into the space.
Where the street had primarily provided passage, it could now support sitting, meeting, balancing, reading and growing.
The change was spatially small. The shift in what the street was allowed to be was considerably larger.
Illustration of our Street Moves concept of Oskarsgatan. Daytime.
Illustration of our Street Moves concept of Oskarsgatan. Nighttime.
Illustration of our Street Moves concept of Oskarsgatan. A pedestrianized, safe and lively street is what we are aiming for.
The Design Process - Street Moves Hultsfred
Redistributing the street
The transformation of Oskarsgatan can also be described through a few simple shifts:
10 fewer parking spaces
50 → 7 km/h
from ordinary street to pedestrian-priority street
0 → approx. 35 m² of larger planted areas
from passage → staying, meeting, reading, balancing and growing
3 → 6 municipal functions involved
and approximately
650
children and young people involved in transforming one ordinary street.
Oskarsgatan before Street Moves, autumn 2022.
Oskarsgatan during the opening after Street Moves, May 2023.
The Design Process - Street Moves Hultsfred
Building the street together - Creating ownership through making
The transition from drawings to reality was deliberately hands-on.
Construction and establishment became extensions of the design process rather than simply the final delivery phase. Municipal staff, the design team and local participants worked alongside one another as elements were built, moved, planted and adjusted on site.
The design team itself took an unusually active role in this stage — not only overseeing the result, but physically participating in the establishment of the street. The project evaluation describes the team being on site, carrying stone and taking an active part in making the transformation happen.
This mattered.
When the people who design, manage and use a place meet around the actual work of transforming it, boundaries between designer, client and user begin to dissolve.
Building became another form of dialogue.
Participation continued into the physical transformation.
Children planted. Students helped build. Municipal departments contributed resources and knowledge. Local organisations became part of making the street work.
This distributed way of working was sometimes less predictable than a conventional design-and-build process, but it created something that would have been difficult to specify in a drawing: ownership.
The project’s evaluation later identified this as an important lesson — when more people are included in transforming public space, and feel ownership of it, more people also have a reason to care for that place afterwards.
Street Moves Utvärdering Hultsfred.docx
In this sense, co-creation was not an activity alongside the design process.
It was part of the infrastructure of the project.
All refurbishment work was done by 10 kids from the local high school.
The high school workshop.
The municipal architect in charge in Hultsfred was an active partner in the project.
Refurbishment under way.
Motivated work force.
Under way.
Shades of green.
Colour work.
Thumbs up!
Getting there.
The final layers.
In line.
Close to ready.
Final result. Ready for Oskarsgatan.
Several hundred kids from the local kindergardens helped out with raising and establishing plants for Oskarsgatan during the spring of 2023.
Planting.
Plants in place.
Having a break.
Ready for planting.
Into the soil.
The design team and the municipal workers joining forces establishing Oskarsgatan.
The design team and the municipal workers joining forces establishing Oskarsgatan.
The design team and the municipal workers joining forces establishing Oskarsgatan.
Chairs ready for be arranged at Oskarsgatan.
The refurbishment team moves the chairs in place to form a long table at Oskarsgatan.
The refurbishment team moves the chairs in place to form a long table at Oskarsgatan.
Adding flags.
Sign explaining the project.
More flags.
Help from the youngest.
Lunch before rehearsal.
Sign explaining the project.
Time for rehearsal.
Testing the tables during rehearsal.
Rehearsal before the grand opening.
Actors, directors, designers and fanclub.
The Design Process - Street Moves Hultsfred
A street for everyone
On 19 May 2023, Oskarsgatan reopened on an unusually warm spring day, welcoming people of all ages to experience the transformed street. The centrepiece was a long, winding communal table, assembled from restored second-hand furniture and surrounded by greenery grown by local children. But the opening was more than a celebration — it was an essential part of the design process. Actors from Kalmar Byteater brought the street to life through music, dance and playful performances, demonstrating that the new public space was there to be explored, shared and used in unexpected ways.
What had previously been a street dominated by traffic and parking had become a place to meet, sit, play and spend time together. The installation was originally intended to remain throughout the summer, but the strong local engagement helped extend its life into the autumn. The furniture was deliberately left unlocked and unanchored — a gesture of trust in the people of Hultsfred and their willingness to care for a place they had helped create.
The opening marked not the end of the design process, but the beginning of the street’s new life.
Opening day of the transformed Oskarsgatan and Street Moves Hultsfred.
Local pre-school kids gathering for the grand opening.
Artistic director of Kalmar Byteater, Monica Wilderoth.
Actors and kids interacting during the grand opening of Oskarsgatan.
Many of the individuals included in the development process attended the grand opening. Kids as well as teenagers and adults.
Actors showing the people of Hultsfred how to use their new public space.
Dancing on the tables.
Suzanne Osten encouraging the people of Hultsfred to use their new public meeting place at Oskarsgatan.
Hultsfred’s municipal commissioner delivers the opening speech at the inauguration of the new Oskarsgatan.
A lot of people gathered around the long street table during the opening day.
Documentation time.
Some final words.
540 candle lights made by Hultsfred’s pre-school kids added to the street during a dark November afternoon.
The design team of Street Moves Hultsfred. Suzanne Osten + Studio Doms + Studio Era + Outer Space architects.