PARK(ing) Day brings imagination to Gay Street parking spaces on Friday – Knoxville News Sentinel
Knoxville’s annual PARK(ing) Day event is back on Gay Street on Friday to spark creativity about what a simple parking space can become.
The all-day event encourages community members, students and designers to turn metered parking spaces into temporary parks with interesting themes like art, food, music, gardens and education. Some previous parking spots were turned into dog parks, putt-putt courses and yoga spaces.
“This is really about being creative and bringing interaction together with people that wouldn’t normally happen otherwise,” said Lizz Wetherall, Community Design Center Program chairwoman.
The free event, which takes place from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m., is a part of Knoxville by Design, an initiative hosted by he East Tennessee Community Design Center and the Tennessee chapter of the American Society of Landscape Architects to promote architecture and design.
Though the event has been downsized this year, the concept is still all about imagination.
“We’ve had a lot of participation with this event in the past, and we have about 15-20 different community organizations that are doing these little parklets,” Wetherall said. “It’s just developing a design or concept that’s interactive that promotes the organization. But it also has to promote the idea that a parking space can be used for something more.”
Knoxville’s first PARK(ing) Day was held in 2018. It started in San Francisco in 2005.