Project Tag: San Francisco

PARK(ing) DAY 2017: Mirror Mylar Forest-Field

Posted on Aug 12, 2019

For Park(ing) Day 2017, INTERSTICE Architects created an interactive Park(ing) Day installation on Polk Street at Hemlock Alley. Visitors experienced the wind-activated Mirrored Mylar Forest to explore questions of pedestrian safety and share their experiences of being a San Francisco pedestrian. Which spaces are prioritized for pedestrians? Where is there room for improvement?

Recording individual experiences as a pedestrian, cyclist, or driver, the public was asked to register their information directly onto the installation surface. An enlarged a map of the Polk Street Corridor (built from data collected from the California Highway Patrol and highlighting pedestrian-related traffic incidents) created grounds for the discussion. This interactive pedestrian Park(ing) map evolved throughout the day as a palimpsest that visitors could walk through, orienting themselves within the parking space, the neighborhood, and the city streets.

The installation was inspired by INTERSTICE’s collaboration with Polk Streetscape Improvements recently underway as part of an initiative to enrich the Lower Polk Alleyways District. The new Lower Polk Alleyways District Vision Plan (LPADVP), recently adopted by the Lower Polk Neighbors, proposes a future vision for the 12 blocks of alleyways located within the boundaries of the Lower Polk Neighborhood. INTERSTICE Architects guided this community-driven process which has resulted in a unique community-initiated set of strategies and guidelines designed to understand these alleyways, not as singular backstreets or isolated funding opportunities, but instead to consider them as a whole—as a District.

Location: Polk Street, San Francisco

Owner/Client: N/A

Scope: Interactive Installation

Status: Completed 2017

Photography: INTERSTICE Architects

PARK(ing) DAY 2006 through 2011

Posted on Nov 14, 2025

PARK(ing) DAY 2011: paARRRrk-let

For our sixth annual Park(ing) Day* installation, we decided to create a prototype Parklet situated in front of 826 Valencia that created a “ship” to nurture an urban tree and provide a place for people to lounge on deck in its shade. The volume of the paARRRrk-let (borrowing from the pirate theme of its neighboring storefront) is 800 cubic feet – which is equivalent to the minimum soil required for a healthy urban tree to develop a healthy and stable root system and flourish. Our long-term concept for this prototype was to create a network of urban nursuries that double as social spaces.
*PARK(ing) Day event begun by REBAR

PARK(ing) DAY 2010: Hayday

PARK(ing) DAY 2009: Forest on Foot

PARK(ing) DAY 2008: Hanging Native Garden

For IAs third annual PARK(ing) day installation, THE HANGING NATIVE GARDEN tackled the subject of integrating native ecology into our urban environment. We chose this year a parking meter beside a busy Gas station along a major pedestrian commuter access route, at the corner of 24th Street and The Valencia Corridor. Re-using the 40 timber bamboo culms from last year, a twelve foot tall interconnected lattice work was created in situ, into which 300 feet of shade cloth (Donated from Burning Man) along with 24 bales of hay was woven, to create a seating display area, sun shelter and suspension structure for over one hundred native plants (from Flora Grub) and animals (From SF Native Rescue).

Simple shade, it turns out, is an important and often overlooked, component for some of our native plant and animal species. The area of a single parking space could provide habitat for 30 shade-loving native plants, cover for local gopher snakes, and would retain the moisture necessary for the creation of a localized microclimate. The installation created a busy information kiosk, and experience center, for native plants and animals encouraging awareness and promoting permeable street planting grass roots projects. The temporary structure hosted Tree Frog Treks, whose founder Chris Giorni brought 4 foot Gofer Snakes and a Red Legged Box Turtle named Trucker that could be held and touched by fascinated children and adults alike. All the plants were later planted in the public right of way into 800 square feet of permeable sidewalk planting strips by a local neighborhood group Fix 26 and the hay bales were donated to a local elementary school.