Landscape Architecture Students Transform Dickson Street Parking Spaces Into 'Parklets'

Image courtesy U of A student ASLA chapter

Rendering of the Dickson Street Parklet

FAYETTEVILLE, Ark. — Landscape architecture students in the Fay Jones School of Architecture and Design at the University of Arkansas are working with community members to reinvent metered parking spaces as temporary community parks. Two parking spots outside Blackboard Grocery and Eatery, at 644 W. Dickson St., will be transformed into miniature parks, or "parklets," on Friday, Sept. 15. 

One of the parklets will be up just on Friday as part of Park(ing) Day 2017, and the other, the Dickson Street Parklet, will be up for a full year.

The one-day parklet will include plants and seating areas. In order to maximize the small space, the students chose to create modular elements that could be changed, rearranged and refitted to create new space. The modular element design is a simple L-shaped piece made of wood that can be put together with another L-shaped piece to create a planter or seating. 

For the second year, White River Nursery is generously loaning plants to the students for this project. The students were able to take their pick of the nursery's entire plant selection. This year, the group focused on having a native palette with a good mix of color and texture, while also bringing in specific plants that attract butterflies or have a pleasant scent in an effort to produce a sensory experience. 

The parklets were designed by the U of A student chapter of the American Society of Landscape Architects. This Friday's event is being led by ASLA officers Jordan Pitts, Erin Cox, Ben Magee, Dallas Myers and Addison Warren.

The yearlong installation will feature seating areas, bike racks, a planting box, standing bar and a wrap-around mural. After seeing the 2016 Park(ing) day event, Randy Werner, of Old Buildings LLC, enlisted the landscape architecture students to design the Dickson Street Parklet. Old Buildings LLC owns the UARK Bowl building, which houses Blackboard Grocery and Eatery.

Park(ing) Day started in downtown San Francisco in 2005, when the San Francisco art and design studio Rebar transformed a single metered parking space into a temporary park. The day has since expanded into a global movement, and is occurs on the third Friday in September. The project's mission is to call attention to the need for open spaces in urban areas, generate discussions about how public space is used, and improve the quality of urban landscapes. The event, which is held on the third Friday of September each year, challenges existing notions of public space in urban areas and urges individuals to reinvent the space to meet specific community needs. 

This is the third year that the university's ASLA students have participated in the Park(ing) Day project, each time on Dickson Street.