Smiljan Radic with the Zwing bus stop

Perhaps the dullest of urban experiences is waiting at a bus stop. Yet few cities have explored how to make it more pleasant. In fact, the first city to actively reimagine the lowly bus stop is not a city at all.

Earlier this year, the tiny Austrian village of Krumbach (it has a population of around 1,000 people) formed a cultural association and launched the Bus:Stop project to boost the number of tourists who already visit the surrounding scenic Bregenzerwald area.

Hoping to promote an international exchange of ideas, the association invited seven renowned architectural firms from around the world – Japanese architect Sou Fujimoto, Wang Shu's Amateur Architecture Studio from China, Norwegian studio RintalaEggertsson Architects, Ensamble Studio from Spain, Chilean architect Smiljan Radic, Architecten de Vylder Vinck Taillieu from Belgium and Russian architect Alexander Brodsky – to design bus stops around the village in exchange for - what else - a holiday there (this is to promote tourism after all). 

In addition to the city's cultural association, the local community of Krumbach rallied together to make the project happen. Local sponsors including hotel and inn owners, craft workers and business people provided the majority of the funding and services to support the process.

The results are impressive - stacked wood planks, a forest of thin steel rods, a triangular Alps-ispired design, a tennis court viewing platform, an archaic tower and more.

The bus stops were inaugurated on May 1st and an exhibition documenting the design and construction process is currently on show at the Vai Vorarlberger Architektur Institut in the city of Dornbirn.

Hopefully, the world's biggest cities can one day build bus stops as innovative is a tiny town in Austria did. Check out the results below.*

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Oberkrumbach bus stop by Alexander Brodsky- Alexander Brodsky designed a shelter resembling an archaic tower with an empty upper section and glass walls on three sides that shelter the waiting area. "We tried to design a typical Krumbach bus stop," said Brodsky.

Unterkrumbach Süd bus stop by Architecten De Vylder Vinck Taillieu- Belgian office Architecten de Vylder Vinck Taillieu created a folded form influenced by the angular Alpine mountains and a drawing by American artist Sol LeWitt.

Unterkrumbach Nord bus stop by Antón García-Abril and Débora Mesa of Ensamble Studio - "Ensamble Studio's bus top for Krumbach explores the appropriation of a local technique – used to stack wood planks in the drying barns in the region – and translates it into an architectural space."

Kressbad bus stop by Rintala Eggertsson Architects - Rintala Eggertsson Architects chose a site next to a tennis court for their timber-built bus shelter, which is clad in wooden shingles and doubles up as a spectator stand for the tennis courts.

Zwing bus stop by Smiljan Radic -"Urban exteriors seem to be the natural extension of small, protected interior spaces," said Radic. "Zwing bus top seeks to express this domesticity. We have taken the 'mould' of a piece of a 'Stube' and reproduced its beautiful height, its ceiling figures, and transformed its materiality to create a feeling of familiar estrangement."

Bränden bus stop by Sou Fujimoto - "Both bus passengers and non-bus users can use this bus stop as a meeting point. Everyone may climb the tower-like bus stop to enjoy panoramic views of Krumbach. A transparent forest of columns can create interesting scenery in a site surrounded by nature."

Glatzegg bus stop by Wang Shu and Lu Wenyu of Amateur Architecture Studio - "This is a bus shelter, but not merely a bus shelter," said Shu. "It is like a 120 SLR folding camera that people can sit in. It is not only an abstract lens, because the camera is built by local wood and craft. The lens focuses on the scenery, the symmetrical, the static; sunlight illuminates the interior as gentle breezes filter through it; our gaze is guided to the mountains far away. The symmetry of the camera will undoubtedly trigger symbolic implications, but this symmetry is broken by the sloped eaves at the side."

* Quotes and photos from Dezeen Magazine.