Park(ing) Day for Tulsa Urban Design Students
OU Urban Design students and alumni worked together to create a micro park installation in a parking lot space in downtown Tulsa for International Park(ing) Day earlier this semester. The group was assigned an on-street parking space to transform into an urban parklet.
“With such a large portion of downtown Tulsa being dedicated to parking, this event shows what the downtown culture would be like if it was designed for human interaction instead of cars,” said Tyler Duncan, Urban Design student who took part in designing the space for Park(ing) Day.
International Park(ing) Day “is a global, public, participatory project where people across the world temporarily repurpose curbside parking spaces and convert them into public parks and social spaces to advocate for safer, greener, and more equitable streets for people,” according to its website. Groups take part across the United States, Europe, Australia, South America, and around the world.
This year’s Park(ing) Day celebration in Tulsa took place in the Arts District and included an opportunity for the public to view each of the installations and vote for their favorites. The OU Urban Design activation was sponsored by Coracle Coffee and Scraps Designs. The event was organized by the Downtown Tulsa Partnership.
“For me the metaphor of taking a parking lot and transforming it into something beneficial and useful – to draw out what more the space can become – bears huge significance toward my view of humanity,” Duncan said. “Seeing people create better utilized spaces is encouraging.”
By Bonnie Rucker
