🏙️ Umeå is making space for girls! Teenagers in the northern Swedish city of Umeå expressed that they lacked a welcoming public space to go to – girls in particular. To change this, Umeå decided to team up with a group of local teenage girls to develop one of its city parks. 👭 The result was 'Frizon' (free zone), a kind of seating sculpture placed in Årstidernas park. The seating area is nicely lit and made for hanging out with your friends sheltered from the weather. The design is very thought-through: you can connect to wi-fi, charge your phone and play music through speakers. What's more, the seats are designed to fit teenage girls, rather than the default male. Through a close dialogue with local teenage girls, the city created Frizon in collaboration with Tyréns architects and Kerstin Bergendal, an artist. It was inaugurated in 2016. ♀️♂️ Apart from Frizon, Umeå has pioneered a lot of work on gender-equal city planning, with the aim of making the city more inclusive and safe...