Parking Day
Four parking stalls on campus were converted to miniature parks by landscape architecture students for Parking Day on Friday.
The four creative parking stalls were designed by 30 students in the Urban Theory, Systems and Design class taught by Professor Caroline Lavoie. Students tried to emphasize how much space is taken up by parking stalls and show how stalls could be replaced with an open, naturalistic area instead. Kirk Dimond, senior in landscape architecture said, “(If) one stall makes this big of a difference, imagine if all the stalls were like this, it would really cause for a nice place.”
Dimond said he helped design and set up the “park-arting” display in the B parking lot just north of the University Inn. His group’s design included gravel, grass, bark and four trees.
“We’d like to see more plant life and trees and grass instead of so much asphalt,” Dimond said.
Another display near the Chase Fine Arts Center didn’t include any plants or bark but only used asphalt and shoes, said Shawn Bunnell, senior in landscape architecture.
“Because there were gonna be like four groups, we decided instead of just throwing down some sod and making it look like a little park, we decided we wanted to do more of the message,” he said.
Bunnell said his group drew lines with chalk and placed shoes in small parking stalls to show how many people can fit in one parking stall. Their motto, “Walk more, drive less,” was set up next to their display.
“The message is pretty clear (of) how many people (are) equivalent to one parking stall,” Bunnell said. “If all those people got on a bus, you know, that’s a lot of people.”
Another display created a beach scene to attract more attention, since people in Logan don’t see that very often.
“We just wanted to do something that was pretty eye-catching so that people would start asking questions,” said Angelie Anderton, a second-year graduate student in landscape architecture.
The display included a blue tarp for water and beach towels set on top of sand. There were also two trees of Anderton’s and some chairs to sit on. Anderton said many of the students borrowed plants from the garden center or landscape companies, but the beach group used their own trees and gathered sand from a different location.
“We borrowed it from a sand volleyball court in Cache Valley,” said Billy Kauffman, senior in landscape architecture.
The fourth design was an abstract sculpture of a sledgehammer in recycled concrete, titled “Breaking the Impervious Mold.”
Parking Day began in San Francisco in a single metered stall and has since spread to the world, according to a Landscape Architecture and Environmental Planning press release. The day, spearheaded by the Trust for Public Land, is centered on reclaiming public parking spaces for parks and open spaces, according to the press release.
For more information, go to www.parkingday.org or www.usu.edu/laep/.
-ranae.bang@aggiemail.usu.edu