Remote Revolution is an ongoing project exploring the potential future of the underground transportation network of London post-COVID-19.

Up until the global COVID-19 pandemic, London was a city largely dependent on its public transportation systems. Since April 2020, however, people have started avoiding using the public transport infrastructure in the city due to concerns about their health and safety. Currently the public transport of London is facing 67% drop in use compared to 2019 and predictions say there will continue to be at least 40% drop of its use post-lockdown, compared to before the pandemic. In addition, remote working is becoming the norm for most of the workers in London with 57% of Londoners currently working remotely and 63% of all businesses offering flexible workspace policies.

This leads us to question how will the public transport of London be reformatted after the pandemic. Can we imagine a reprogrammed underground network for London?

THE SITE

STRATEGIC APPROACH

The proposal is to redevelop the existing underground network to fit a different set of programs, aiming to create more public spaces in central London and more connections on a human scale.

Exploring the existing site uses, we created a design toolkit to help us reprogram the underground networks and stations.

ANALYSIS OF STATIONS PROXIMITY

The first step towards re-developing London’s underground network is analyzing the connectivity of the area and identifying possible alternatives to the use of the metro.

ANALYSIS OF ALTERNATIVE ROUTES

SITE USES

Next, we analyzed the uses of the site. Central London is an area well-known for tourist attractions such as Big Ben, Buckingham Palace, St. Paul’s Cathedral and many others. It is also an area largely populated by cafés, restaurants, pubs, as well as many shops. This exploration was necessary to develop a proposal for potential programs that could take place in the existing underground infrastructure.

CASE STUDIES

Lastly, we explored 3 metro stations as case studies for this potential re-development and the new connections that can be formed.

Remote Revolution: A Proposal for the Future of the Underground Transportation Network of London Post-Covid-19 is a project of IAAC, Institute for Advanced Architecture of Catalonia developed in the Master in Advanced Architecture 2020/21 by students: Jose Rigoberto Moreno, Jose Levy Rodriguez Suarez, Mahathir Aqeel Kamoor Sourjah, Tsvetelina Bogdanova and faculty: Marco Poletto, faculty assistant: Eirini Tsomokou