A flower box on every bike
Het Parool newspaper / Art & Media (17 May 2011)
by DANIËL BERTINA

In the run-up to the What Design Can Do! symposium, five designers present solutions for Amsterdam nuisances. Today, Frank Tjepkema gets to grips with the sea of bikes scattered around the main train station.

He has a whole stack of designs lying around. Frank Tjepkema of design office Tjep flops down onto the sofa and places a number of sketches on the floor. Two years ago he was asked to the ‘Talk of the Town’ discussion evening at Pakhuis de Zwijger event centre to present some solutions for the so-called ‘bike tangle’ at Central Station — the vast sea of bikes locked to one another that never seems to get any smaller. This to the annoyance of many an Amsterdammer, who curses as he tries to squeeze his bike into one of the crammed bike racks in order to catch a departing train. Tjepkema grins. “Shall I start the presentation then?” On 26 May the What Design Can Do! event started at the Amsterdam City Theatre. This two-day symposium focused on the creative power of designers and how they can solve social problems. Big names from the international design world came to Amsterdam. Tjepkema is one of the speakers and will discuss, amongst other things, his project Oost: a self-sufficient farm, fun-fair and hotel all rolled into one. A number of solutions for the bike chaos at the train stations are deliberate nonsense — intended as provocations, Tjepkema explains in his office on Veembroederhof. Among them are underwater bike racks in the canals and the idea of fitting every bike in the city with a flower box. “At least then that dull sea of parked bikes might look a little cheerful, like a moveable field of tulip bulbs. And if the flowers wilt, then it’s a clear sign that a bike is obviously no longer being used. So it can be cut loose and removed.” But there are also practical ideas. To Tjepkema the biggest problem with all the bikes is that many of them are seldom used and just take up space. There’s not enough circulation. His solution is not to build an even bigger bike shed but to encourage people to cycle more. Each day the cyclists in the city should collectively complete almost two million kilometres. That’s not visible yet, says Tjepkema. “But it’s something we should be proud of. That’s why I came up with a big digital board placed right in front of the train station, which displays the ‘bike kilometre index’: the distance we’ve all covered by bike that day.” “To register that we could for example design an app for mobile phones that keeps track of the number of bike kilometres cycled per inhabitant each day.” “Breaking records is always good fun. I think that would encourage people to make more use of their bike, and not allow them to rust away in the racks at the station. What’s more, Amsterdam can present itself as the most energy-efficient, bike-friendly city in the country.” Countless engineers have unsuccessfully tried to find a serious solution for the big bike tangle, says Tjepkema. “Maybe it’s now time for a more light-hearted look at the problem, because you often stumble across very useful ideas along a playful detour.”