Page - 137 - in Mobile Culture Studies - The Journal, Volume 3/2017

Mobile Culture Studies. The Journal 3 2o17 Patrick Naef | Using mobility and urban planning to implement atmosphere 137 far stronger impact on the behaviour and the speed of a motorist than a sign indicating a pas- sage for children.’ (Keuning Institute, as cited in Gerlach et al., 2008 5) The assumption here is that when road users do not feel safe they will act more carefully: ‘risk reduction in shared spaces is thus achieved through the creation of anxiety or ‘unease’ among drivers and pedestri- ans.’ (Moody and Melia, 2014, 7) In other words, creating an atmosphere of insecurity could favour more cautious behaviour. To explain this dynamic, Clarke highlights an interesting ana- logy, proposed by the geographer John Adams, between shared space and car brakes: ‘You fit a car with better brakes, people don’t drive the same way as before and enjoy an extra feeling of safety, they drive faster and start braking later. The potential safety benefit of better brakes in fact becomes a performance benefit.’ (Clarke, 2006 291) Beyond traffic calming, Nicolas Soulier adopts a similar perspective towards urban planning in general. His approach is based on the British operational guidelines ‘Living-with-risk-briefing’ (CABE 2007), which proposes to use risks in a creative way. For Soulier (2012, 112), processes of ‘over-protecting’ or ‘over- designing’ help to sterilize public space: ‘Step by step, they secure traffic, secure housing, even if it means blocking the vital process it was intended to protect.’ In Versoix, the architect Marcellin Barthassat and his colleagues are also in favour of a mi- nimalist conception of street furniture: ‘We think that chicanes and road humps are definitely ef- fective, but it is a coercive effectiveness, to the detriment of public space.’ (Personal communication, 8 March 2017) The architect goes even further by illustrating how some street furniture in an encounter zone developed a few years ago in Geneva was seen as a potential source of insecurity by some parents. They were afraid that when children played at hide-and-seek behind these ele- ments, which were mainly flower pots, there was a danger they might rush out into the street. Ensuring security without sterilizing urban life, enabling ‘place making’ and the development of a lively atmosphere to happen, is a challenging process, highly dependent on the perceptions of the various users: parents, children, seniors, motorists, cyclists and others. The inclusion of these different and sometimes competing perceptions should be integrated into the decision- making process as early as possible. Furthermore, planners and magistrates should be ready to react and be prepared to reorient their choices after experiencing them in situ. Whereas an overuse of street furniture and signage is often criticized, the integration of natural elements into the streetscape is usually viewed positively, especially when they help create an attractive atmosphere. Indeed, the promotion of slowness in the city changes urban practices; it takes shape in a particular designed atmosphere that favours the inclusion of na- tural elements (Thomas, 2012). This was particularly the case in Versoix, where the architects, through what they called ‘vegetal urbanism’, sought to emphasize elements such as water and vegetation. However, the potential to plant trees was limited by a large underground parking lot and it is the vine mentioned earlier that now constitutes the main vegetal ornament. Some trees were finally planted, but the objective was more related to regulating the traffic than to encouraging pedestrian anchorage. A line of trees now reduces the width of the road, forcing motorized vehicles to reduce their speed. Nevertheless, vegetal elements can certainly play a role in the place appropriation by the local population. Some localities, like Neuchâtel or Bern, propose specific sites in encounter zones where the population can engage in gardening tasks and so take part in the development of the place. In Geneva and Fribourg, several inhabitants wanted to collaborate with the city in the planting and maintenance of flowerbeds in some