park MOBILE PURPOSE: LEADERS: SCALE: FACT:
To add more neighborhood green space and to further activate streets with public seating. City Departments Business Owners Business Improvement Districts Neighborhood Organizations Street || Block Each parkmobile costs approximately $6,000.
One of the most appropriate uses of tactical urbanism is to jumpstart the implementation of long-term vision plans. Parkmobiles, designed by San Franciso-based CMG Landscape Architecture, were installed in the summer of 2011. They are a direct response to the neighborhood’s desire for more green space, as voiced in San Francisco’s Yerba Buena Street Life strategic plan. Fashioned from custom dumpsters, each parkmobile fits within a single vehicular parking space and contributes to “a vision and road map for a next generation of public space in the Yerba Buena District.” Other initiatives featured in the plan include widened sidewalks, mid-block crossings, and the tactical conversion of alleys into plazas or shared streets. At present there are six parkmobiles being moved periodically around the neighborhood. Each unit contains a different type of vegetation, including Tasmanian Tree Ferns, Strawberry Trees, Yuccas, and shrubs that attract birds and butterflies. In doing so, they highlight the importance of an agreeable pedestrian experience and recognize the importance that vegetation and seating play in creating an attractive environment for pedestrians. Overall, the initiative pays homage to San Francisco’s longstanding tactical tradition of improving the larger urban landscape in small and fluid ways.
Parkmobiles are, well, mobile. Credit: Dwell via Miyoko Ohtake
A parkmobile located outside of SPUR’s urban center. Credit: Dwell via Miyoko Ohtake
A parkmobile working as intended. Credit: Mark Boster/Los Angeles Times.
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URBANISM