Transport for London (TfL) has now announced the two winners of the competition to design the new Routemaster. One is a joint venture between Aston Martin (who obviously think the credit crunch make buses a better bet than luxury cars!) and Foster + Partners, and the other was designed by Capoco, a firm which designs buses, coaches and trucks.

I suspect a lot of people will be disappointed. Neither of these creations actually looks like the much-loved RM. In particular, the radiator of the Capoco design looks very squashed – not the friendly ‘face’ of the traditional bus, but a pudgy scowl.

Aston Martin’s luxury bus

However, get over your initial disappointment and look at what the Foster/Aston Martin design delivers. A drive-by-wire system, solar panels, zero emissions capability, and an interior with wooden floors and warm lighting that has been designed to feel ‘convivial’. This is not a dumbing-down, lowest-cost alternative – it’s in the great traditions of British transport, believing that everyone, however impecunious, is entitled to good design and a decent service. Not over the top in that regard, but wholesome, decent, good.

While I find its lines a little bit too Teletubby – it does look rather like a toy bus, though some of that may be the style of the graphics – it looks friendly and even slightly amusing. I can imagine Londoners coming to love this bus. Or, Londoners being what they are, slagging it off in a gentle, tolerant way.

Capoco – practical but boring?

This is a design that I suspect suffers in the TfL presentation by the fact that all the interesting stuff is beneath the surface. It just doesn’t look that good – but the low floor, hybrid electric drive, and redesigned drive-train system, are significant engineering advances on the old RM.

What is very interesting is that Alan Ponsford, at Capoco, says that in thirty years of working in the sector, Capoco has never before seen an open competition for bus design. Competitions are commonplace in the architectural world – maybe there should be more of them in other aspects of urban design?

So for once, kudos to Boris Johnson for a real innovation. (Regular readers of this blog will know I don’t give Boris many breaks, but for once, he’s done something worth praising.)

My personal favourite…

So often, it takes an outsider to notice things that you walk past every day. Sometimes, strangers give you better advice than the people you know best. And so in this case, it took a team of Catalan designers (hailing separately from Barcelona, London and Valencia) to come up with a design that for me, just is the Routemaster.

You see, what’s happened with both the winning designs, I think, is that they know the Routemaster so well that they’ve taken little bits of it as cultural references, which we can look at and say, ‘Oh, that’s like the real Routemaster’. It’s a bit Russell T Davies really. But while it’s clever and arty, it doesn’t make a bus.

The runner up design, by Hector Sarrano, Miñaro Garcia and Javier Esteban, takes the traditional Routemaster with its tall, narrow feel, and makes it curvier, gives it a sort of go-faster feel, while opening up the interior space and making the aisles and stairs wider. Again, it’s a hybrid (diesel-electric) – and it’s light and compact, which makes it both cheap to run, and in my view better for central London’s narrow and twisty streets.

Anyway, if you have any interest in buses, graphic design or just the way London’s urban fabric is pinned together, it’s well worth taking a trip to the TfL website and looking at the designs. And, just for fun, the pdf file with details of the winners also has the winners of the ‘imagine’ competition – from youngsters’ crayoned impressions to some incredibly articulate and radical ideas from younger designers.

Photo credit: Spencer E Holtaway on Flickr

Post from: The London Traveler

LT: When did you first encounter the Routemaster bus? How far back does your fascination with it go?

RO: I first saw the Routemaster on TV at my parents’ house in Staufen, on the edge of the Black Forest. I was 12 or 13 years old.

LT: How did the project for Last Stop get started?

RO: I’m a founding member of photodebut, which was set up in 2002 as a collective for emerging photographers. At photodebut I became friends with Maxine Beuret and jet. it was at one of our monthly photodebut get togethers (at the time at the agency in Charlotte Road, east London) Maxine informed us that the routemasters were going to be phased out by the end of 2005. Jet, Max and myself then realised that we shared a strong common interest for the routemaster, so we decided to create a tribute of this london icon. We split the project into three. Maxine concentrated on still life photography of the exterior and interior design elements of the routemaster, jet documented the drivers and conductors at the 19 and 38 depots (in Hackney and Battersea), and I photographed en route (passengers, drivers, conductors) and still life imagery of the interior and exterior design elements.

From the start I had the idea of a book in my mind. I had a pretty clear idea how i wanted the book to look and be. Then I researched some routemaster photography books that were to date available. I found out that there were quite few out there, however none in the form I felt I wanted to create.

Due to restricted time, Maxine unfortunately had to end her involvement as she was also shooting her own personal project ‘the departure of the slam door trains’. jet and I continued until the last day of the rm, 9th december 2005. jet was happy with the last stop website which we created together with emotional designers. in 2005 www.routemasters.co.uk was archived by the British Library in the interest of national heritage. With jet’s blessing i went the last mile alone and created the Last Stop book and exhibition (which is currently on show at London Transport Museum until 26th July). Once the project was completed i started to approach potential publishers, exhibition spaces (galleries & museums) and sponsors. London Transport Museum provided me with the home for Last Stop. The museum has been very supportive of the project. We worked well together on the marketing and PR, and the museum provided the exhibition space for free and also organised various routemaster related events (see www.ltmuseum.co.uk) to support the exhibition and book.

LT: I really liked the depot pictures. What sort of response did you get from drivers and conductors?

RO: The main body of work of drivers and conductors in the depot were photographed by jet. Again with jet’s blessing, i was happy that we also could show some of her depot pictures in the book.

The responses were great. We spent several days and weeks in the Hackney and Battersea depots. We created a relationship with the staff who I think were happy and proud to be part of Last Stop, which really was a labour of love project to us.

LT: Did you get a feel for how drivers, conductors and passengers viewed the change to the new buses?

RO: I felt the overall view was that most drivers and conductors really loved the routemasters and their job on them. There was a strong sense of social togetherness that I could feel amongst the drivers and conductors. Having spent 18 months on route I could witness the abuse and joy they were exposed to, especially the conductors. I obtained the sense that many of the passengers (especially the elderly, women and visitors) felt quite safe on the routemasters, because there was a conductor on board.

LT: What other London icons appeal to you?

RO: The people at the gutterslut parties, the architecture of the old East End, the people that run the last family businesses of the East End, the red phone boxes.

LT: Many thanks Ralf! I hope to see more of your photos – we both share a love of the old East End.

Photo credit: ‘Hopping off’ copyright Ralf Obergfell

Post from: The London Traveler