This past Friday, creatively-minded urbanites from all over the world invaded parking spaces from cities all over the globe and turned them into… parks!
Park(ing) day was started in 2005 in San Francisco, when the creative folks at Rebar turned a metered parking space into a temporary public park, in an area of the city that was deemed to be lacking in public space. The park lasted for 2 hours: the exact amount of time allowed by the parking meter. The idea was ingenious: address a common issue in many global cities – how to best utilize urban areas for public spaces – in a fun, creative and unexpected way.
From this simple, brilliant idea, came an influx of other urban dwellers, eager to join the party and create their own temporary public spaces. It has since become a full-blown global movement: places as diverse as Boston, Seattle, New York, Athens, Beijing, Rio De Janeiro, Cape Town & Reykjavik have all hosted Park(ing) day events yearly. Last year, 975 parks were created across 162 cities, on 6 continents!
Here’s some highlights from Park(ing) days across the world.
Looking forward to Park(ing) Day 2013! ICS will represent…
- Resources:
- Parking Day website
- Parking Day Manual from Rebar