Rebuilding Place in the Urban Space

"A community’s physical form, rather than its land uses, is its most intrinsic and enduring characteristic." [Katz, EPA] This blog focuses on place and placemaking and all that makes it work--historic preservation, urban design, transportation, asset-based community development, arts & cultural development, commercial district revitalization, tourism & destination development, and quality of life advocacy--along with doses of civic engagement and good governance watchdogging.

Monday, December 19, 2005

Taking (it to) the streets!

PARK(ing) 2 of 20.jpg

In the last few weeks I've done a couple entries about actions where people-groups take back the streets. (See "Balancing stakeholder preferences for road use" and at the end of this entry "A 'divergent view' about camera surveillance and ticketing.")

Katie Salay from PPS alerts us to a new such action from San Francisco's Re:bar Group. From Re:bar's website:

What is RebarRe:mix. Re:make. Re:configure. Re:consider.

Rebar is a creative collective based in San Francisco. One of our principal aims is to sample and reconfigure elements of the physical and cultural landscape. Much like a DJ samples and remixes recorded sounds, Rebar's work appropriates elements of the physical/cultural world and remixes them into novel contexts. These remixes both refer to the elements' original cultural meaning(s) and simultaneously transform those meaning(s) into a new critical message.


In other words, we move stuff around.

The Rebar Group in San Francisco conducted an interesting experiment last month to show how easy and effective it is to reclaim a parking space. They created a temporary park out of a parking space on the street - they fed the parking meter, then rolled out turf, put out a bench and a tree, and then watched as people stopped to relax, read the paper, or have a chat with a stranger. Check out their website for more and a slide show of the event.

PARK(ing) 4 of 20.jpg
PARK(ing) 9 of 20.jpg
PARK(ing) 11 of 20.jpgConspiring with Rebar's John Bela and Matthew Passmore in the creation of PARK(ing) were Blaine Merker and Gregory Kellett. Still photos by Andrea Scher and Jeff Conlon.

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