POP.Park Competition

Call for Submissions

In celebration of Park(ing) Day 2009, Transportation Alternatives (T.A.) is hosting a new park(ing) spot competition. We’re bringing Park(ing) Day out of the box by challenging creative types to design a portable and affordable pre-fabricated POP.Park that people can use to reclaim public space each and everyday of the year. POP.Parks will be public spaces produced from readily available, reclaimed or post-consumer recycled materials that will emerge from a regular, cardboard box. POP.Park competition finalists will be invited to construct their prototype on Park(ing) Day 2009 and entries will be judged by POPular text-message voting. The winners will be announced at T.A.‘s annual REDUX event and the winning POP.Park prototype will be fabricated and sold on the T.A. website.

POP.Park prototypes should create a relaxing, safe and visually compelling environment for people. POP.Parks must provide physical delineation from traffic and be contextual to the city street environment. Physically, POP.Parks must fold into a box (or reusable bag or tote) that one person can carry while walking or riding public transportation. When assembled, POP.Parks should be no larger than 8’x15’ - the size of a regular car parking spot. The cost of building a POP.Park must not exceed $20.00.

POP.Parks should be easy and fun to reconstruct and recreate over and over again on a neighborhood street. What’s in the box should be the structure - but the instructions can call on the creativity of the user to incorporate other commonly available materials or furniture items. For example, if you weave old socks into a mat for people to sit on in your POP.Park, you don’t necessarily need to include the old socks or the old sock mat in your POP.Park box - rather, you can include “old sock mat” instructions. That said, if you’re asking people to make a mat out of old, stinky socks, it better be an awesome mat and have excellent and fun directions.

Purpose

It’s estimated that 80% of New York City’s public space is made up of our streets and sidewalks. With less than half of New Yorkers owning cars, it only makes sense that these streets are allocated for the maximum benefit of the public. That is, more space for people and less space for cars.

For the past two years, Park(ing) Day Park Builders proved that this shift can happen one 8’x15’ parking spot at time. Answering the age old call, “Whose Streets? Our Streets!”, the POP.Park Competition will transform Park(ing) Day NYC from a once-a-year act of reclamation to an everyday statement. The winning submission—transportable, affordable and easy to use—will add the immediate potential of public space to every block, every day of the year.

Important Dates

• Wednesday July 22, 5pm Eastern Standard Time (EST): Call for Submissions Released.
• Tuesday September 1, Submission Deadline: Transportation Alternatives will acquire necessary permits for spaces. For this reason, submissions can not be accepted after this date.
• Friday September 18, Park(ing) Day: POP.Park prototype installation (pop it up!)
• Friday September 18, All Day: Park(ing) Day! Spaces throughout the city
• Date TBD: Park(ing) Day REDUX

http://parkingdaynyc.org/competition