Planning your installation
1. Develop a concept for your Park(ing) Day installation
What is your goal for the piece? It may be to create a temporary green space, a place for people to sit, to play, to create, to recreate. Perhaps you want to call attention to the need for safer, greener, or more accessible streets. Park(ing) Day is a tool for direct action to temporarily change the way streets are used. It is NOT a place for advertising your company or selling a product. Park(ing) day is meant to be an act of generosity, offering to your community something beautiful, playful, useful, and meaningful.
2. Assemble a team of collaborators
Park(ing) Day works best when it's done in collaboration with your friends, neighbors, and non-profit and city government partners. Find a group of friends or colleagues to plan your event. Research what the codes and guidelines are in your local municipality. Your city may already be planning a Park(ing) Day event that you can be part of. If not, don’t let that stop you. Try to build a coalition of people, cultural organizations, local businesses, and local activists and political leaders to join the cause.
3. Identify a location for your installation
There are many factors to consider when choosing a Park(ing) Day installation. The first among them is public safety. We do not recommend Park(ing) Day installations on very high traffic volume streets or streets with vehicle speeds over 25mph / 40km.
Find a public parking space that is not a service or delivery vehicle loading or ADA parking space. Choose a location that will be visible to people walking and biking. Consider what the ground floor uses of buildings near the space. If there are local businesses or cultural organizations check with them to make sure they support your installation. Explore how you might document your installation with photography or video.
Check the microclimate. Will the location be in the sun, shade, wind or weather during your installation?
How will people get to or interact with your installation? Will it be safe and easy to get to?
Designing and building your Park(ing) space
When designing and building your Park(ing) Day installation consider the principles of the circular economy. The circular economy is a model of production and consumption which involves sharing, leasing, reusing, repairing, refurbishing and recycling existing materials and products as long as possible. In this way, the life cycle of products is extended. In practice, it implies reducing waste to a minimum. Use these principles to guide your work.
Eliminate waste and pollution
Use materials that can be reused, repurposed, composted or recycled.
Avoid non recyclable or reusable plastics, styrofoam, and other toxic or difficult to reuse materials
Consider how you will get materials to and from the site. Use bicycles and bike trailers if you can.
Circulate products and materials (at their highest value)
Consider borrowing or leasing materials such as planting and furnishings or come up with a plan to reuse or donate them after the event.
Regenerate nature
Your installation should seek to actively improve the environment during the event by providing habitat, biodiversity, shade, or a safe social space.
Leave the site in better shape than you found it. Bring a broom, dustpan, trash bags and a good pair of gloves. If you plan to clean up after dark, bring flashlights.
Design Elements
Enclosure
Protect your space and the people that will use it by creating some type of boundary or enclosure around your space. This can be as simple as traffic cones or free standing delineators, to larger heavier objects, like water filled barricades, wooden planters, or even blocks of wood or stone.
Groundcover
Although Rebar’s original PARK used living sod, we do not recommend using real grass, unless you have a place to permanently install it immediately after your PARK(ing) Day event. Instead, we suggest you try something more creative and symbolic—a groundcover that will transform the hard concrete or asphalt into a more comfortable and visually impressive space. Other PARK(ing) Day participants have used quilts, pools, gravel, carpets and astroturf. With all these items, though, please consider where you will reuse them after PARK(ing) Day.
Seating
The more types and variety of seating you provide, the greater the chance of unplanned interaction among PARK(ing) Day visitors. Seating can be formal such as chairs or benches or informal such as planters, ledges and edges, blankets. Ensure the seating is safe and accessible.
Shade
If your location will be hot and sunny, providing shade will greatly add to the comfort and utility of your installation. If you want to use living plants to provide shade, some nurseries will lease trees by the day or week. Check with your local nursery to find a sturdy tree with abundant foliage for shade. Bamboo or a large indoor plant may work in your climate. Other options include flags, sails or large pieces of fabric. Check in with your friends and neighbors: Is one of them planning to buy a tree you could first use for PARK(ing) Day?
Play/creativity
The possibilities are endless. You know what to do.
Park(ing) Day kit of parts
For a comprehensive manual of elements refer the excellent Tactical Urbanists Guide to Material and Design. For some open source seating and street furniture ideas and plans, check out Better Block’s Wikiblock an open-source design library for building better blocks.
Enclosure
Traffic barricades
Reflective tape
Traffic delineator
Signage
Traffic cone
Straw wattle
Groundcover
Artificial turf
Wooden turf
Foam tiles
Outdoor rug
Sidewalk chalk
Spray chalk
Seating
Lounge chairs
Milk crate
Wooden crate
Wooden pallets
Wooden picket fence
Plants as natural screening
Wooden planter
Bench
Foldable table
Foldable bench
Shade
Umbrella
Larger plants
Provide shade
Play/creativity
Consider elements which will catch the attention of people passing by and create a fun and inviting experience.
Ball pit
Sand pit
Lawn games
Tire swing
Hammock inflatables!
Seesaw
Installation
1. Pay for your spot!
2. Secure the perimeter
3. Lay down groundcover
4. Place furniture
5. Enjoy!
Remember to take pictures!
6. Clean up
Be prepared leave your city streetscape in a better condition than you found it. Sweep like this is your property, because it is. Help your city erase the trace of others by sweeping the whole block!
The Park(ing) Day network
The PARK(ing) Day Network is the open-source, user-generated living archive of the worldwide event. We strongly encourage prospective participants and anyone interested in the event to join the Network to share and gather information, advice and, of course, photos, videos, interviews and anecdotes related to PARK(ing) Day installations. Websites and blogs for planning Park(ing) Day already exist in many cities. Check the PARK(ing) Day Network and make some new friends! Use your Network page to share photos, ideas and stories before and after the event. You may find allies who have more in common with you than just Park(ing) Day.
More resources to help you prepare and get inspired:
Participant’s Care Package
“The vast majority of outdoor urban space is dedicated to the private vehicle, while only a fraction of that land is allocated to open space for people.”