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• The POD’s have recieved an upgrade. Contributor Gareth Frymier unveils the changes on page 2.
• Kelly Alley describes the “decrescendo of a natural symphony conducted by humans” on page 5. • According to Asst. Sports Editor Will Backus, the UT vs. Florida game was a “comedy of errors.” See his grades of Saturday’s game on page 8.
Monday, September 24, 2018 • The Daily Beacon 1 Monday, September 24, 2018
Upper Left Photo: The “From Meters to Mountains” Booth is set up with camping gear on Gay Street for Park(ing) Day on Sept. 21, 2018. Lower Left Photo: Many arts and crafts, including sidewalk chalk and water coloring, are available to participants of Park(ing) Day on Sept. 21, 2018 in downtown Knoxville. Right Photo: The first annual Park(ing) Day takes place on Gay Street in downtown Knoxville on Sept. 21, 2018. Quinn Phillips / The Daily Beacon
Inside:
• Around 50 Knoxvillians peacefully protested the visit of Vice President Mike Pence and Congressman Marsha Blackburn Friday. Contributor Bailey Fritz covered the protest on page 3.
Volume 136, Issue 11
Knoxville reinvents parking with tiny parks Luna Brewer
Staff Writer Knoxville, like many other urban areas, is a sprawling concrete jungle, littered with approximately 5,000 acres of parking spaces; however on Sept. 21, Gay Street was down 48 metered parking spaces. The spaces were dedicated to Knoxville’s first official Park(ing) Day, an international event occurring every third Friday in September where citizens, artists and activists collaborate to temporarily transform metered parking spaces into miniature parks. The event originally began in San Francisco in 2005, by an art and design studio, hoping to call attention to the need for more urban open space, to generate critical debate around how public space is created and allocated and to improve the quality of urban human habitat. Knoxville’s first Park(ing) Day was created by the East Tennessee chapter of American Institute of Architects, the East Tennessee Community Design Center and the Tennessee chapter of the American Society of Landscape Architects (ASLA).
“The whole idea is to reclaim parking spaces for people, making fun, interactive spaces for people in cities that might lack park spaces,” Dustin Durham, a staff designer at the East Tennessee Community Design Center, said. The spaces were created by both individual artists and businesses, like Mast General Store, architecture firms and park associations. According to Durham, the team of organizers were hoping to get 10-15 parklets but were happy when over 40 groups registered for spots. Nashville’s Park(ing) Day, which has happened for several years, averages 40-50 spots, so the group is surprised by the bar Knoxville has reached in its first year. “We are hoping that (this event) allows people to come down and enjoy the city, as a place intended for more than just cars,” Durham said. Each of the spaces featured interactive elements, like large-scale board games, a breastfeeding station, a communal painting of the Knoxville skyline and even a camera obscura hosted in a small trailer. UT landscape architecture students even got their own dedicated space, where they showcased the ability of things created in UT’s Fab Lab, a 20,000 square ft. makerspace.
“(With our space) we were hoping to engage the public with a bit of fun,” Daniel Rose, third-year landscape architecture MLA candidate and UT ASLA president, said. “So we’ve set up a lunch break space with adultsized board games and discussion panels about how they operate downtown.” Other organizations used Park(ing) Day to promote their own creations and events. The Maker City Knoxville and the Mayor’s Maker Council had four spaces to showcase their efforts. They also advertised their upcoming Maker City Summit, happening at the Mill & Mine Sept. 23. “When Park(ing) Day came out and I heard about it, I told everyone at the council so that we could reach out to all the makers in Knoxville,” Ben Pruitt, Mayor’s Maker Council staff member said. “This is a great way for makers to show what they do to urban pedestrian culture.” According to Durham, the bigger goal for Park(ing) Day is to get people to understand that city streets can and should be multi-use. He also hopes that in the long-term, citizens can see more curb bump-out, extended sidewalks with more small-scale communal spaces.