Systematic design and construction strategy of subway public art based on urban spirit
Authors: Lian Liu 
Published: June 2023

AbstractWith the acceleration of urbanization around the world, subway space has become a special and necessary public space. The complexity of the subway environment, the diversity of passenger needs, and the integration of urban culture have brought new problems to the future development of subway space. Development is increasingly using design as a means to address social development issues. This paper conducts online or field research on representative subway stations in New York, Stockholm, Shenzhen and other cities, and discusses the feasibility of subway public art design based on urban spirit and the necessity of systemic design thinking intervention research. The material carrier of publicity and urban spirit, analyzing the path and elements of subway public art system design, from the macro level (theme planning and station classification strategy), the meso level (site selection strategy of multi-point layout) and the micro level (design elements generation) to propose a systematic design strategy at three levels.Research BackgroundThe early 20th century had seen the commencement of public art research. After a century of growth, its study subfields have been honed, and several studies on public art in subways have surfaced.Public art is an important medium to create a subway space atmosphere, which is the most intuitive embodiment of a city subway different from other cities. At present, although there have been many studies on the relationship between subway public art and urban spirit, most of the creative themes of subway public art are the translation and presentation of cultural elements, and most of them are based on the individuality of a station, lacking the integrity and continuity of the expression of urban spirit from the perspective of the lack of layout of the whole line of the subway network. There are scattered creations, and the integrity of the public's understanding of the urban spirit has not yet been formed. A system that promotes memory reinforcement.A statement of the objectiveThe research takes the promotion of the city spirit as the starting point, strengthens the city people's cognition, memory, understanding and recognition of the city spirit as the goal, takes the advantage of the wide coverage, tight connection and many nodes of the urban subway network space, takes the subway public art as the material carrier of publicity and the city spirit, analyzes the elements of the subway public art systematic design,and puts forward the subway public art systematic construction strategy based on the city spirit.A statement of the significanceA public art work is composed of multiple design elements, including the theme concept, scale, form of expression, technical means, shape, color and material of the work. The manifestation of urban spirit by the work is the embodiment of urban spirit by the design elements. The significance of this topic is shown in the following four aspects: 1. Taking the city spirit as the starting point, it provides practical methods for improving the city's soft power and strengthening the construction of social spiritual civilization.2."Metro+Public Art" "As the research object, give full play to the advantages of space and design expression, improve the civilization of the urban public, and give the possibility of diversified subway journeys. 3.Run through the research path with systematic design thinking, and provide systematic guidance and suggestions for the planning and design of urban public art. Methods4.use digital technology as a means to provide more innovative options for the presentation form of subway public art and the way to spread the city spirit.Methods:A.Literature analysis method: through summary and induction, we can clarify the research trends of domestic and foreign scholars on this topic, and analyze the existing problems at this stage.B. Case analysis method: analyze subway public art cases around the world to provide basis for the generation of design framework and strategy.C. Inductive and deductive method：The "strategy proposal part" of this study has used inductive and deductive method for many times.D.Propose the systematic design framework of subway public art based on the urban spirit, and propose the transformation method of design elements:1. Transformation method based on entity metaphor2. Transformation method based on structural metaphor3. Transformation method based on location metaphorResultsThe systematic design strategy is proposed from the macro level (theme planning and site grading strategy), the meso level (multi-point layout location strategy) and the micro level (generation of design elements).