#3—Design Constraints, part deux

Probably no one needs convincing about the design constraints involved in remaking a streetside parking space into a Park(ing) place. But to highlight a few:
• Impossibly small size, especially in comparison with the remaining road space;
• Asphalt as hot as the late summer sun beating down on its heat-absorbing surface;
• Automobile traffic whizzes or crawls, exhaust-spewing, at uncomfortable proximity.

But consider how these constraints become opportunities:
• Small spaces can be filled with BIG things; a park is socially expansive—it attracts people who might then sit and do a crossword puzzle, eat lunch, or meet their neighbors and make plans to attend the next community board meeting together to advocate for more permanent parks!
• How many ways can one make shade on an asphalt island? Umbrellas? Market tents? Ficus trees borrowed from a sidewalk-fronting Italian restaurant? Rusted out, removed car doors sticking out of planter boxes, as clipped wings from a DeLorean? The possibilities can make as big a statement as the space is small…
• As a stationary space for people, your park sits in stark contrast to the pace and purpose of automobile traffic it abuts on one side and the sidewalk movement passing it on the other. Work this “gap” to remind motorists of their impact on your park (isolation masks? Over-sized traffic barriers?) and to simultaneously woo pedestrians in (isolation mask decorating? Live music? Gymnastic equipment? Cold drinks? A bench on which to enjoy their lunch where the previous day there wasn’t any?)

Point is, Park(ing) Day is about possibility. It’s about making a lot out of a little—whether motorist education or pedestrian refuge offering. Think about your park(ing) space and how its smallness and ill-suitedness might become its most valuable assets for demonstrating to both speeding and plodding passersby the higher uses to which a park(ing) space might be dedicated…