Park(ing) Day 2012

Last Friday saw the 8th annual Park(ing) Day transform car parks into pocket parks in cities all over the world.  The initiative began in San Francisco in 2005, and in 2011, there were over 957 parks in 162 cities in 35 different countries.

Melbourne hosted several of these pint sized parks including a mini-garden outside the princes theatre staged by City of Melbourne and the Nursery and Garden Industry of Victoria, one in Russel Street from co-design handing out fruit from Ceres (both shown above) and one in South Melbourne by SJB (shown below) to name just a few examples.

Park(ing) is a pretty cool example of showing how spaces in our cities can be transformed, and tested for other uses and new ideas.  It also makes you think about how much space is devoted to parking cars, and what our cities would be like if that space was used for something else?  It was great to see people wander past with interest, and take a moment to experience something new in their city.

This image courtesy of SJB.  Copyright SJB.

For more info on Melbourne's involvement, click here and here.

To read more about Park(ing) day, click here.