The woonerf ('living yard') redesigns residential streets as shared spaces where pedestrians, children and cyclists take priority and cars must move at walking pace. Pioneered in Delft in the late 1960s, it removes the kerb-separated carriageway in favour of mixed surfaces, planting and street furniture that force drivers to slow. Dutch traffic law gave the woonerf formal status in 1976. The principle spread internationally as 'home zones' and shared space.
The woonerf reframed the residential street as social space and seeded the global shared-space and traffic-calming movements.
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