ABSTRACT
Mobilities research is taking a 'material turn' in which artefacts and sites are included in an emerging understanding of the complexity and multiplicity of everyday life mobilities. This chapter considers the 'mobilities turn' some fundamental insights into how design decisions and interventions across multiple disciplines and professions shape the situational affordances of everyday mobility practices. By looking into the 'situational' framework for understanding mobilities, it links mobilities research and design disciplines and practices closer together. The theoretical background of actor-network theory and non-representational modes of thinking is connected to a framework of pragmatic situational analysis in combination with the notion of 'affordance'. Drawing upon this conceptual framework, the chapter discusses the example of a research study focusing on a parking lot in a 1970s suburban district in Aalborg, Denmark. It demonstrates the analytical value of adding design to mobilities research; and aims to show how experimental and practical design interventions may help uncover new potential for supposed 'non-places'.
