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 Hultsfred explored how Oskarsgatan — a car-dominated street in the heart of Hultsfred — could become a more inclusive place for people to meet, play and spend time. The design team developed the project in close collaboration with Hultsfred Municipality and the local community, using dialogue, hands-on participation and reuse to transform the street while maintaining essential access. More than 500 children and young people took part in growing, building and shaping a temporary public space that ultimately remained in use well beyond the summer.

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 - A street shaped by its community

From traffic space to public space

Oskarsgatan runs through the heart of Hultsfred, connecting the town centre and its main square. Like many streets, however, most of its space was dedicated to movement rather than staying.

The initial brief was to create a temporary summer street: reducing the dominance of cars and giving pedestrians more room, while maintaining access for deliveries to the businesses around the main square.

But rather than beginning with a predefined solution, we began by looking at the street as part of a larger social landscape. Who uses the town centre? Who feels at home there? What is missing? And what could happen if a piece of everyday street space was allowed to serve more purposes?

The result was not simply a redesigned street, but a process involving children, teenagers, seniors, local businesses, municipal departments and residents in imagining, making and ultimately taking ownership of a new public space.

The Design Process - Visby Summer Squares

A deep dive into the design process - Starting with people, not objects!

Design brief

Transform a car-dominated street into a shared public space — giving more room to people while maintaining essential access.

One street. Broad participation. Maximum reuse. A temporary transformation.

Our first visit to Hultsfred was about listening.

At the local upper secondary school, students marked places in town where they felt safe and unsafe and talked to us about what they valued in Hultsfred and what they felt was missing. At the youth centre, conversations continued informally over games of table tennis and pool.

Senior residents were invited to a workshop to develop their own visions for Oskarsgatan. We met preschool representatives and school principals, the municipal leadership, the city architect and the technical department. Throughout the process, we also maintained a dialogue with the town-centre development group and the police.

These encounters provided different perspectives on the same place. Rather than asking one group to represent the whole community, the process deliberately sought out people of different ages and with different relationships to the town centre.

The design itself remained the responsibility of the design team. Participation was not used to outsource design decisions, but to build a richer understanding of the place and the people for whom we were designing.

The Design Process - Visby Summer Squares

A city as workshop - Make use of local assets

A limited budget and compressed schedule required another way of working.

Instead of specifying an entirely new collection of urban furniture for external production, the project made use of the knowledge, materials and production capacity already available within the municipality.

Design decisions were continuously negotiated against what could actually be produced, transported, planted, installed and maintained.

This created a short distance between idea and reality.

Design. Discuss. Adjust. Build. Test.

The process became almost as important as the objects it produced.

Selecting locally sourced oak logs for balancing play

Collecting locally sourced oak logs for balancing play

Selecting locally sourced limestones as stoppers and stepping stones

Preparing locally sourced birch for creating beautiful furniture-like objects for sitting, climbing and balancing

Birch logs ready for assembling to furniture.

The Design Process - Visby Summer Squares

Instead of buying new, we started with what the municipality already had.

24 existing urns and six large tree planters were restored and given a new life as part of the summer squares. The refurbishment was carried out together with school students from a local special school.

The approach reduced the need for new products, kept the project within a limited budget and made better use of resources already available within the municipality.

Reuse became more than a sustainability strategy. It became a way of combining resources, participation and making.

24 urns restored
6 big planters given a second life
0 new planters purchased

Old planters found behind the municipality's green house. Possible to reuse?

Old planters ready to repair, clean and paint

The refurbishment dream team from a local special school class!

The Design Process - Visby Summer Squares

From design to everyday operation

Turning the design into two functioning public spaces required close coordination between design, production and municipal operations.

Furniture and objects had to be built, transported and installed, while trees and plants were prepared and placed across the squares. The temporary nature of the project meant working directly with existing conditions and adjusting details on site as the spaces took shape.

But the work did not end when the squares opened. Watering, cleaning, waste management and everyday maintenance became part of keeping the places inviting throughout the summer.

Bringing the people responsible for building and managing the spaces into the process helped bridge the gap between design intent and everyday reality — from the first installation to the daily care of a living public space.

Flags created at one of the local daily care centers

Wind socks manufactured at one of the local daily care centers

Building trellises for flower support in the municipality's carpentry

Building beach boxes at the South square

Adding oak logs for sitting and balancing

Watering is the single most important maintenance-activity and in this case waste water from the water cleaning plant is used

The stage on the Main square takes shape

One of a hundred conversations from curious people during the establishment period.

People filling the stage after just a few minutes

Maintenance after a few weeks of use - Linseed oil soap treatment.

The Design Process - Visby Summer Squares

Two squares, two characters

The interventions were not conceived as identical installations.

Each square responded to its existing character, flows and social conditions while sharing a common design language.

Furniture, planting and spatial elements created smaller situations within the larger urban spaces — places for conversation, play, rest and spontaneous encounters.

Together they formed a temporary layer within the historic city rather than attempting to compete with it.

First family on site at the transformed South square

People on picnic tables at the South square

Time for world cup game at the South Square park

People using the oak logs as seating during game time

The beach box came in handy for gathering people watching the game

The beach chairs at the South square park became very popular during world cup game nights

Extra seating for visitors to the adjacent restaurant

The Main square is very popular during sunny days, now with more free seating

Picnic tables for rest and sharing a meal

The Main square was full during game day, no furniture nor plants visible to the naked eye

The Design Process - Visby Summer Squares

The result

Visby Summer Squares demonstrates how relatively small physical interventions can produce significant changes in how public space is perceived and used.

But the project also points towards another possibility.

When municipal departments, designers and local communities work directly together, the design process itself can become a form of capacity building — leaving behind not only new places, but new relationships, knowledge and ways of working.

The project transformed two squares for a summer. The larger experiment was how a city can transform itself.