Where do I park my bike?

Mobility is the weave of our cities. Its infrastructure characterizes the urban landscape and, like the traffic lights of East Berlin, gives it an identity through their repeated appearances. Microarchitectures of public spaces, however, mostly have pedestrians as their main target group. From public toilets, to drinking fountains – also in the past the design targeted pedestrians. But as the Danish urban planner and architect Jan Gehl claims, in a “human scaled” city, cyclists and pedestrians should be arranged within the same category. Sustainable mobility in cities should be by foot, public transport and via bicycle. However, some means of the latter medium has the need to be parked when not in use. This thesis deals with exactly that problem: developing a safe, space-efficient and completely free-of-charge bicycle parking facility. Through precise research methods and testing across one-to-one models, the bicycle stand MBF52 was developed: a modular bicycle parking system which, by virtue of its coloured elements and dynamic shape, offers the possibility to park bikes compactly with maximum safety.