A Commons for All
Design for
Speculative futures, Urbanism
Year
2019-2020
Minneapolis is a city of lakes with over a dozen bodies of water dotting the landscape within the city limits. Once the sub-zero temperatures of a Minnesota winter begin to fade, the lakes take on newfound life with individuals biking, walking, barbequing, running, and rollerblading along the shores. The lakes of Minneapolis are highly connected by the Chain of Lakes Byway (Figure 2), a trail system that takes individuals around five lakes on 15 miles of trails in the heart of the city and is “one of the country’s longest continuous systems of urban parkways” (Minneapolis Park and Recreation Board, no date). While the trail system is only open to pedestrians and cyclists, a road system surrounds that very path, creating an environment for many interactions between motorists, pedestrians, and cyclists.
However, in light of Covid-19, the roads surrounding the Chain of Lakes closed to give pedestrians more socially distanced space to move about without the threat of interaction with vehicles. While the lakes team with life under normal circumstances, the additional space created by the closed roads created an even more active, engaging, and joyous environment. With these new pedestrian boulevards used and enjoyed by many, it bears asking the question, “Why open up these roads to cars ever again?”
These roads offer up blank slates with which to imagine new futures—futures that prioritise active mobilities over petroleum-fuelled mobilities, reconnect individuals to the lake and its surroundings, and focus on the health of the lake and the other living beings that occupy this space. Through a situated and speculative approach, this dissertation outlines those new futures by focusing on one lake in particular—Lake Nokomis—to visualise and describe a specific, real-world example that can have application beyond this one shorefront.
INSIGHT
What were the key methods that you used for this project?
Observation of the area surrounding Lake Nokomis was the main method used to better understand behaviour, movement, and space use at the lake. Historical analysis was also an important pice to this project to better understand how the space, and the life that occupies the space, has evolved over time.
Did your project evolve in unexpected ways?
Yes, I ended up creating a series of speculative collages that were meant to be visual provocations. As I was creating them, I learned that the process of making them became more important than the final output. I discovered that rapid collaging could be a method used with others in a workshop environment to get individuals to think quickly, and in a very low-risk setting, to envision divergent futures.
