#2—Design Constraints, Part 1

The most satisfying, interesting creations spring from constraint. Time, money, materials, space, energy, and people shortages are always lurking somewhere behind brilliant works of art. Such constraints become an important part of the artistic process, and lead to innovation, or design “solutions” that artists summon out of the unique availabilities of the moment. The resulting works are expressions of their makers’ “read” on possibility and constraint in a specific place, and a particular moment.

“So what,” you ask, “in park(ing)’s name has this philosophical drivel got to do with Park(ing) Day?”

Well, consider the limitations of a busy New York City avenue, a la 2008, from the perspective of a park-seeker. Cars, buses, and taxis swarm (or languish and generate lots of Co2) over sticky asphalt, shuttling busy people and the goods and services they require, between buildings. “Rest areas,” otherwise known as “parking spaces” are reserved for motorized vehicles in between trips, but where can the people go to rest in between trips? Must we always spring for a latte or a beer to get some relief?

Don’t those shuttling vehicles exist to serve US? When did we agree to give them so much of OUR space?

So, what if we re-read a portion of the sea of on-street parking spaces lining city avenues and streets as places of rest, meeting, reflection, and play? What if we see the constraints of an automobile-fashioned streetscape as wide and narrow ribbons of possibility for us and our neighbors? What sorts of tiny park interventions—little design solutions—would make our neighborhoods incrementally nicer places to lay over between the bustle? Forget Central Park and Prospect Park—those grand-scaled public works have been done! Think instead on the scale of pockets and tiny oases…what can we conjure out of such liberating smallness? This is what Park(ing) Day is about.