Our Landscape Architecture students were partnered with local landscape architecture firms to bring a new twist to carparking spaces in Central Auckland last Friday as part of International Park(ing) Day. Lounge furniture, scrabble games, beanbags, plants and umbrellas were the order of the day in Britomart’s Tyler Street as carparking spaces were transformed to parklets in a day celebrated simultaneously around the world.
Park(ing) Day, which began in San Francisco 2005, is an initiative intended to promote the rethinking of public space. The simple concept to transform multiple car parks into shared areas redesigned for human interaction in place of a single motor vehicle, took off around the world, and is now an annual institution, taking place every third Friday of September. 
This year the event fell on the first day of the NZIA Festival of Architecture dates (20-29 September).
The NZ Institute of Landscape Architects was responsible for connecting our students with landscape architecture companies to support their work on Park(ing) Day installations, which included Boffa Miskell, CAAHT Isthmus Group, Beca Group and WSP Opus.