‘PARK Yourself Here’ will transform a Toronto downtown street parking spot into a temporary urban park. Rather than a placeholder for a single car this installation will become a place for people to gather. Interacting under the floating silhouette of a car, the passerby will have a chance to escape the hustle of the urban core.

This installation is to celebrate Park(ing) day, an annual open-source global event where citizens, artists and activists activate the metered parking space as a site for creative experimentation, political and cultural expression, and unscripted social interaction. On Friday, September 21, hundreds of cities around the world will participate in transforming metered parking spaces into healthier and more beautiful places for their inhabitants.

In Toronto, the parking authority operates approximately 17, 500 metered parking spaces on City of Toronto Streets in the core commercial areas. Using the standard parking size in Toronto (5.9m x 2.6m), that is a total of 268, 450mô for the use of private vehicles, an equivalent of 66 Yonge-Dundas squares (4, 047m²)! We will transform one of these metered parking spaces into a colorful and interactive experience for pedestrians.

Our proposal is to place a rectangular enclosure on a parking space. It has a full scale silhouette of a car cut out at the bottom. By lifting it up to the proper height, a public space is revealed. Showing how much of our actual environment is occupied by cars, as well as an invitation to pedestrians to enter.

Once underneath, they will find themselves immersed under a canopy that made out of recycled pop bottles. Each person will be given an opportunity to fill one of these empty bottles with the color they like. Throughout the day, these colored bottles will be transformed into a colorful canopy. We like to call it the Sunroof.

Note: The original idea of the canopy design is by Garth Britzman called (POP)culture:
http://www.behance.net/garthitecture