EDAW

EDAW's Parking Day 2007

This year a team of designers in EDAW's San Francisco office led by Megan Walker, Alma Du Solier, and Blake Sanborn participated in PARK(ing) Day 2007 thanks to the support of EDAW's collaboration initiative. The event is dedicated to promoting public open space in our cities by transforming a parking spot into a park for a day. With help from San Francisco City Supervisor Ross Mirkarimi, who gladly volunteered his parking space in front of San Francisco's City Hall, the designers set to work with a 20 x 9 foot stall referred to as 'the site.' The event dates back to 2005, when REBAR (a San Francisco-based art collective) transformed a metered parking spot into a park. The group installed a temporary park that provided nature, seating, and shade, and 24,000 square-foot-minutes of public open space for an afternoon. What began as a simple, playful idea has become a lively and visible symbol of the desire to reprogram the street and increase public open space in cities all over the planet. In 2006, with support from the Trust for Public Land, REBAR created PARK(ing) Day 2006 as an international event to bring artists, designers, and activists together. Last year, 47 PARKs were set up in 13 cities worldwide, including New York, London, and Rio de Janeiro. This is the first year EDAW has constructed an entry. Conceptually EDAW's park was about growth: the growth of community, the growth of ecological consciousness, and the growth of art in the public realm. Since the format of PARK(ing) Day is ephemeral in nature (limiting the exhibition to one day), EDAW's strategy was to create a park that celebrated its momentary lifespan by evolving throughout the day. It was built using recycled materials and solar-collected energy. Normally discarded materials, including thousands of glass bottles and reams of used paper, were diverted from the waste stream and re-configured into a habitable piece of public art -- a living park. Passersby and EDAW staff members alike joined together to construct or "tend" the temporary park. The park physically grew as more and more bottles were stacked, hung, and wired into place over the course of the day. The anatomical contributions of all its visitors combined to form a three-dimensional record of the day's events. As a didactic, episodic epicenter of activity, the piece was very successful. To execute their vision, the team recruited help from the entire office, soliciting countless bottles for the exhibit in the weeks leading up to PARK(ing) Day. After work, mat-making sessions began wherein volunteers from across disciplines wove 3 x 3 mats made with strips of paper from recycled drawings around the office. Others removed labels from bottles, peeled corrugated cardboard, or passed the time trialing different methods of getting glass bottles into a wire gabion. In addition to the satisfaction of the final product, participants were rewarded with pizza, bottled beverages, and entertainment by Conan O'Brien (well, not in person). Based on the success of this year's exhibit, EDAW SF hopes to participate annually and encourages other EDAW offices to get into gear with a park of their own!