Phone booths are a rare sight these days thanks to mobile phones, but Londoners will soon find themselves seeking one out when their mobiles need a charge. Solarbox London is a project that aims to re-use the iconic red call boxes in London as mobile phone charging stations. Lovers of classic London imagery will balk at the idea of painting the phone booths green, but overall it’s for a greater, greener, good.

Thanks to Solarbox London, some of the city’s remaining red phone boxes will be equipped with 150-watt solar panels on their roofs and chargers for a variety of phones. Based on the strength of the solar panels, each box should be able to provide battery charges to approximately 100 phones per day. Early tests of the six charging stations already installed show that they can provide a 20% charge in 10 minutes, which is ideal for commuters who just need a bit more juice to make a call on the way home.

Users won’t have to pay money to use the Solarbox chargers; however, they will be subject to advertising that displays on a screen inside the box while their device is being charged. Each box will be open and available for charging 365 days a year from 5:30 am to 11:30 pm. Although plenty of people have tried to repurpose the red phone boxes into art, wi-fi hotspots, and a variety of other purposes, the Solarbox gadget chargers seem to make the most sense for the city. They’re practical, they’re financially supported by advertising, and they do a public service. Now if they just didn’t have to paint the red boxes green, we’d all be happy.

The post London’s Red Phone Boxes Become Green Charging Stations first appeared on Gajitz.

If you’re tired of passing cyclists in your car or don’t like seeing precious road space taken up by bike lanes, then you might get on board this idea. You’re ideals might be a bit counterproductive, as the health and environmental benefits outweigh the problems, but a recent “cycling utopia” concept by a British architect may change your mind.

Norman Foster of architecture firm Foster + Partners, along with landscape architects Exterior Architecture and transport consultant Space Syntax, recently presented an idea that would build a 3,300-mile network of expressways that would hover above London’s railways. They call it SkyCycle, a progressive idea that comes on the heels of 14 cyclist deaths in the city’s streets in 2013.

SkyCycle boasts some impressive projected stats. It would include 200 entry points around the city, serving 12,000 cyclists per hour and cutting travel time by up to 30 minutes. But the human factor is what drives the idea. “I believe that cities where you can walk or cycle, rather than drive, are more congenial places in which to live,” said Foster. “To improve the quality of life for all in London and to encourage a new generation of cyclists, we have to make it safe.” The routes hope to be in place in as little as 20 years. Cycling utopia, indeed.

The post Riding High: New Idea Would Build Elevated Cyclist Roads first appeared on Gajitz.

Anyone who uses a transit pass for public transportation knows how annoying it can be to dig it out at the appropriate time. London’s version of the transit pass is the Oyster card, an RFID-equipped rechargeable card that can be used on the Tube, overground trains, buses and trams around the city. The Oyster card design has remained unchanged for nearly a decade now, so designer Benjamin Parton decided to create a whole new direction for the ubiquitous transit pass: rather than a card that travelers have to carry, Parton envisioned the new Oyster pass as a wearable RFID gadget.

In an homage to both London culture and the current name of the transit pass, Parton calls his design Oi. The proposed redesign would feature two variations of wearable objects: a ring and a “watchstrap widget.” In both versions, an embedded radio frequency coil holds the passenger’s account information just as the traditional Oyster cards do now.

Wearable passes would most likely result in reduced wait times since commuters would no longer be required to dig cards out of their wallets – or wait for the passengers who ignore all of the signs and audio messages to have their Oyster cards at the ready. However, it seems that these wearable objects might be a little easier to lose than cards which have dedicated wallet pockets. In the best case scenario, commuters would be allowed to choose between a wearable pass and the more-traditional RFID card-shaped pass.

The post Oi Oi! London’s Oyster Card Gets a Handy New Makeover first appeared on Gajitz.

Anyone who has lived in or visited England has no doubt seen the iconic Tube map. The simple, colorful design (above) is not so much a map as it is a diagram of the Underground stations and their relative positions. While it’s been an effective way to find your way around London since the 1930s, designer Mark Noad says it’s time to move on to a more geographically accurate representation of London’s underground train system.

Noad’s map, above, keeps the easily understandable colors delineating each train line but makes it possible to judge geographical distances between each station. Most Londoners will say there’s nothing wrong with the old map and that it wasn’t designed to be a map for those traveling on foot. But the new map would be reassuring for tourists who find the traditional map over-simplified to the point of being confusing.

Noad’s new design turns a designer’s eye to the problem, using a more space-efficient font that is easy to read on printed materials and on mobile devices. The geographically accurate diagrams indicate, even to first-time London visitors, just how far apart any two stations are. The design truly does seem to be geared toward the non-native Londoner, giving a simple way for the tourist to tell whether she should use the station on this block or whether she can safely keep sight-seeing for a few more blocks without wandering too far from the Tube. The map can help those traveling via overground trains as well because it shows where they link up with the Underground.

The redesigned map will come with a huge benefit: an interactive website that will eventually feature layers of information. The layers will all contain different tidbits such as walking shortcuts, times between stations, zones and disabled access. Noad’s design is far from becoming the official Underground map, but it’s already gained a following of enthusiastic fans. For those who truly don’t see the merits of the new design or who simply don’t like change, the official Underground map is still being promoted by Transport for London as a simple and clear guide to the below-ground trains of the capital. In the end, it seems to come down to a matter of taste; one map doesn’t necessarily fit all users.

The post Re-Drawing the Tube: Iconic Map Gets Designer Makeover first appeared on Gajitz.

The iconic London double-decker bus is getting a 21st century, eco-friendly makeover. The futuristic design from Thomas Heatherwick beat out some 700 entries in the A New Bus for London competition. The design itself isn’t a far cry from the old familiar Routemaster buses; the real significant differences lie in the “green” updates.

The new buses will be 40 percent more fuel efficient than current diesel buses, and a full 15 percent more fuel efficient than existing hybrid ones. Emissions will be far below those of current diesel models, and lightweight materials will further increase the eco-friendly nature of the buses.

It will also be easier to get on and off of the newly-designed vehicles; with open platforms, three doors per bus and two staircases, embarking, finding a seat and disembarking will all be seamless…or as seamless as riding a bus in London can ever be.

Above all of these practical design elements, the new bus actually looks very cool. The swooshing glass feature provides a bit of sunlight in the interior of the bus and highlights the staircase. The rounded corners and asymmetrical features give the buses a modern-but-retro feel that hopefully won’t begin to look dated for quite some time. The first of the redesigned buses should go into service sometime in 2012.

The post Red and Green All Over: London’s Futuristic New Bus Design first appeared on Gajitz.