Marvel designs interactive pavilion in Santurce as part of Park(ing) Day
Multidisciplinary architecture, landscape, urban and interior design firm Marvel will participate for the second time in today’s celebration of Park(ing) Day, by transforming two parking spaces with parking meters on Del Parque Street, Santurce, into a public space to encourage recreation and community interaction between visitors and residents of the area.
Both the College of Architects and Landscape Architects of Puerto Rico (CAAPPR) and the Foundation for Architecture (FxA) will be supporting the event this year, which will occupy most of the parking spaces on Del Parque Street, in front of the CAAPPR headquarters, and where other activities will be carried out during the day.
This year, Park(ing) Day is part of the celebration of Architecture Week, whose focus is the Revitalization of the City, the firm stated.
Park(ing) Day is a global initiative that seeks to highlight the importance of public spaces to the well-being of a city’s residents, in contrast to the amount of space devoted to the use of cars.
The initiative emerged in 2005 as a project of the Rebar art collective in the city of San Francisco, when a group of its collaborators occupied a parking space 8 feet wide by 20 feet long. What was originally a two-hour art installation has grown into a design activism event held annually.
“Our proposal for Park(ing) Day 2022 is to create an interactive and removable pavilion, consisting of reused wooden supports and a tensioned natural rope cover,” said Jonathan J. Marvel, arquitect and founder of the firm.
“The wood was rescued from trees knocked down by Hurricane María in 2017. The planks, like their anchors, had already been used by the firm to create a temporary dome in March 2020, just before the COVID-19 pandemic lockdowns,” he said.
“The ropes will serve as a public expression canvas, since labels will be hung there with ideas proposed by the participants about the future of public spaces in the city’s community,” he added.
The temporary installation will offer a participation space open to the public and its location in front of the Padre Rufo School will serve to integrate groups of students into both the activity and their neighborhood, the firm noted.
As part of the effort, community organizations in the area have also been convened to participate with their own workshops or activities. The public will also be able to send their comments days before the event through a form enabled on the sitio web.
