Anomaly Shanghai wins Red Dot Design Award for “The Chain Effect” – new bicycle parking lines

Anomaly Shanghai has picked up a coveted Red Dot Design Award for “The Chain Effect”, a project that was created as part of the Urban Matters by MINI platform.

The winning design was borne out the realization that the massive proliferation of bicycles from the rise of bike-sharing services in cities like Shanghai, has created new type of traffic congestion for pedestrians, who share these narrow sidewalks that were designed for a different era.

To help solve this new problem, Anomaly came up with the idea of designing new bicycle parking lines that would accommodate more bikes as well as create more space on the sidewalk.

The result was “The Chain Effect’ design that nudges bike users to place their bikes at a 45 degree angle to the street, making better use of the parking space and freeing up extra sidewalk space.

“Great design not only needs to solve a problem, but it must also serve as an invitation for people to use it,” said Ellie See, Design Director at Anomaly Shanghai. “In the Chain Effect I believe we created a simple yet smart solution, so it was great to see that Red Dot felt the same way.”

Based on the success of this pilot initiative on Yuyuan Road, the ChangNing district government has adopted the design to other parts of their district – specifically at Wu Yi Road/Fa Hua Zhen Road.

“Anomaly is not a design agency. But we have won one of the most sought after design awards in the world,” said Clarence Chiew, ECD at Anomaly. “To me, that is proof that our approach of always starting with a well-defined problem, is a sure fire way to win.”