u for Underground
A-Z of experiences across the built environment
Cities have always been celebrated for what rises above the ground. Skylines become symbols. Towers become landmarks. Architects are remembered for what reaches towards the sky.
But every great city is held together by what lies beneath it.
Toronto’s underground network allows thousands of people to move from the metro to the office without ever stepping into the cold. In Moscow, stations are dressed in chandeliers and mosaics, proving that even the journey beneath the city can feel transcendent. We spend surprisingly little time thinking about these places, despite trusting them with our lives every day.
I’ve always been fascinated by the hidden systems that make a place work. The cables carrying our conversations. The pipes delivering our water. The tunnels moving electricity across London. They ask for no applause. Their success is measured by how rarely we notice them and fully trust them.
Get Ade Olatunde’s stories in your inbox
Join Medium for free to get updates from this writer.
Reading Flash Boys changed the way I thought about this invisible network. A few milliseconds separated one trade from another, and suddenly the route of a fibre-optic cable beneath the ground became worth millions. Buried infrastructure wasn’t just infrastructure anymore. It was a competitive advantage. It made me realise that what is hidden isn’t always secondary. Sometimes it determines everything above it.
When the bombs fall, we go underground. When ideas are too radical for the public square, they go underground.
There is something about these spaces that offers refuge before recognition. They give us permission to try becoming something before asking us to prove it. Perhaps that’s why so many movements begin underground. The Beatles found their sound in Liverpool’s Cavern Club long before the world knew their name.
Maybe that is why the underground has always fascinated me.
As designers, we spend much of our time debating façades, entrances and skylines. Yet the success of almost every building depends on the parts no visitor will ever see. The same is true of organisations. Of relationships. And of us.
We spend our lives admiring what rises above the surface. Yet the things that sustain us, in cities and in ourselves, are usually built beneath the surface.
