Pittsburgh PARK(ing) Day 2012

September 21 was PARK(ing) Day: An annual, one-day, international event in which artists, designers, activists and citizens collaborate to temporarily transform parking spots into “Parklets”, or miniature public parks. This type of design activism was the focus of this year’s US pavilion at the Venice Architecture Bienalle, in which pop-up parks, guerilla bike lanes, and similar urban phenomena were presented as an exhibit called Spontaneous Interventions.
Pittsburgh is becoming a center for projects and actions like these. Over the summer, we saw a newly paved street in our neighborhood receive hand-drawn bike lanes in chalk. And some neighborhoods have a fair amount of crochet graffiti known as “yarn bombing“, which has been a growing urban trend for several years.
 

Map courtesy of Patrick Smith, MapGrapher
 
Pittsburgh boasted 25 PARK(ing) spaces this year, which helped put Pennsylvania in the number two spot for the most parks nationally.
evolvers had a great time touring some of the nearby parklets on Pittsburgh’s East End. Check out this map of the city’s PARK(ing) spaces from Pittsburgh’s PARK(ing) Day blog, and some pictures from our own neighborhood bicycle tour!
 
View 2012 PARK(ing) Day Pittsburgh Map in a larger map