Park[ing] Day 2011

My first assignment in the architecture program was a collaborative project with a group of 5th-year landscape architects called Park[ing] Day. The assignment was to convert a single parking spot in downtown State College into a "park," or public use area, for a day.  Our job, as first years, was to document the initial conditions of the site in order for the older students to design more efficiently.  We developed a design with the landscape architects, and our day of work turned out very successfully.


The concept behind Park[ing] Day is to raise awareness about the amount of urban space used for parking; it also hopes to portray  the possibilities that the space could have if it were used differently.  Our Park[ing] Day installment was based around the concept of "take a tree, leave a tree."  The fences on the perimeter of the parking spot support colored cups, each holding a small tree.  Everyone who passed was invited to remove a tree from the display as long as they drew one on the board in the center of the parking spot.  The board had a rectangular base, which had sod on top.  This provided visitors a seating area and brought even more greenery to the parking spot.