Designing mobilities for difference

Cities are premised on difference; on the negotiation of social, spatial and material difference and this forms a key aspect of urban design. However, rather than designing out difference through, for example, defensive architectures, social design should accommodate difference in a way that achieves societal change and enhances wellbeing. The design of streets has a role to play here in that it often stops at the kerb, despite cities’ mobile spaces: their streets, pavements and walkways, being key to meaningful urban transformation. Bringing together researchers in sociology, architecture and urban design, geography and communication studies, this project builds on a number of transdisciplinary streams of work, including research on ‘age-friendly’ cities, intergenerational spaces and ‘shared space’ in seeking to understand the ways in which urban street spaces can be designed in ways that accommodate social difference.