Digital vernissage
Prototype Week 2025
During Prototype Week, students and entrepreneurs explored Umeå's urban environment through public prototypes. The results show new ideas for safety, movement and how we can build on what already works in the city centre.
The mission was to develop public prototypes in Umeå city centre with a focus on safety and movement patterns. The brief emphasised the importance of identifying existing strengths in the environment, reinforcing what already works and at the same time proposing new solutions for the city's further development.
Interaction zone
Many of our urban environments today are characterised by stress and sometimes even anxiety, where conflicts between different modes of transport and people easily arise. Safety is often reduced to measures based on separation, rights and obligations - complemented by technical solutions that mitigate symptoms but do not address the root problem. In this process, the interpersonal aspects - respect, care and interaction - risk being overlooked.
We see this clearly at the Vasagatan/Nygatan junction and its neighbourhood. There our question was raised: How can we increase respect and care between people (on Vasagatan/Nygatan) through safer flows?
During our workshop at Prototype Week 2025, we explored this by developing the concept of the 'Interaction Zone'. A place in the city designed to create space for attention, care and community. Through small but deliberate design interventions - new ways of moving, stopping and staying - we created zones where safety is built through relationships. Instead of simply separating modes of transport, we designed environments where people naturally slow down, see each other and socialise.
The interaction zone is both a prototype and a vision: a reminder that urban safety can be about how we design for human care.
Members: Robert Pettersson-Almqvist, Matilda Gomez Lindblom, Isabelle Kemi and Emelie Aktanius
Look up - See each other
At Vasaplan there is high throughput but low attention. Safety is the perceived feeling of security - a feeling that is fostered when we see and are seen. Our question was: can we create safety by increasing visitor attention and promoting interaction within the area?
We propose the use of small targeted interventions for three different zones: For the traveller, it is a matter of making active decisions, which can be created, for example, through a variation in paving. For short-term waiters, attention can be increased by, for example, furniture that subtly directs the view to the surroundings, while for long-term waiters, it is about increasing the frequency of looking up, which can be promoted by slow changes in the surroundings.
Safety is fostered when we don't get stuck in introversion, but look up, see the place and see each other.
Members: Erica Grundström, Oliver Edrén, Alma Bülöw and Olivia Wärme
Conductive light
Leading light aims to strengthen the connection between Vasaplan and Vasagatan by making the street safer, more attractive and inviting for travellers. Today, Vasaplan is a lively and well-lit place, while Vasagatan is perceived as dark, desolate and unsafe - a situation that risks getting worse when Vasaskolan is expanded and more people move in the area.
Our proposal is to work with LED lights that both guide travellers and create a playful, positive atmosphere. The light strings can be attached to existing structures, adapted to future remodelling and shaped in different patterns to give the site a varied look. The technology is flexible, weather-resistant and easy to adjust according to the season or holiday, making it both practical and changeable.
The project could also be developed by extending the lights to all bus shelters and making them more illuminated. A complementary railing could serve as a support, seating or playful element. With the right technology, the lights could also be made interactive, for example reacting when two people touch them, encouraging spontaneous encounters. This would both relieve Vasaplan and Utopia, which can often be a bit messy, and offer a more pleasant place to wait.
By illuminating the stops and strengthening the flows to Vasagatan, Ledande ljus can transform the street from a forgotten transport route to a place for movement, meetings and safety, around the clock, all year round.
Members: Oskar H Germann, Sarah Konecnik, Emil Sjölund, Alva Andersson and Olivia Sjöström
Prototype Week
Prototype Week 2025 brought together students and entrepreneurs for an intensive week of developing and testing public prototypes in Umeå city centre. The mission was to explore safety and movement patterns in the city centre, with a focus on enhancing the qualities that already work well, while testing new ideas for how the urban environment can be developed. The work has resulted in prototypes that in different ways highlight the relationship between people, movement flows and the experience of the place - and which open up for dialogue about the future of Umeå.
Prototype Week was organised in close collaboration with our three partners, Baltic Groups, UPAB and Ultra, who have contributed knowledge, perspectives and resources to the work in various ways.
The project has received funding from the European Regional Development Fund.