A team of students and recent alumni are among the Philly residents creating temporary parks in metered parking spaces around the city for PARK(ing) Day, the annual open-source global event that started in San Francisco. Inspired by the experiences found in the lands owned and operated by the National Park Service (NPS), the PennDesign team is transforming a salvaged trailer into a camper that will be parked at the Slought Foundation, 4017 Walnut Street, on Friday, September 15. The purpose of the parklet is to allow visitors to experience the sights and sounds of our national parks, especially for those who do not have the means to visit them on their own.
The team includes alumnus Phillip Chang (MIPD’17); dual-degree candidate Clay Gruber (MArch/MLA); Integrated Product Design student Chelsea Meyers; Integrated Product Design student Grace Moore; alumnus Jono Sanders (MSE/IPD’17); and faculty advisor Sarah Rottenberg, adjunct assistant professor and executive director, Integrated Product Design Program.
The parklet is one of five student-initiated projects awarded funding for 2017 by PennPraxis, the center for applied research, outreach, and practice at PennDesign.
PARK(ing) Day began in 2005 when Rebar, a San Francisco art and design studio, converted a single metered parking space into a temporary public park in downtown San Francisco. Since 2005, PARK(ing) Day has evolved into a global movement, with organizations and individuals creating new forms of temporary public space in urban contexts around the world.
According to organizers, “the mission of PARK(ing) Day is to call attention to the need for more urban open space, to generate critical debate around how public space is created and allocated, and to improve the quality of urban human habitat.”
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