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October 7, 2012  

CicLAvia’s Play Street

One of my favorite events in Los Angeles is CicLAVia, a bi-annual event that closes around 10 miles of streets to cars, filling them with bicycles, food trucks and fun. And every year it is equally as amazing to see Los Angeles’ wide boulevards filled with bicycles and pedestrians enjoying the streets and experiencing Los Angeles in an entirely new way.

CicLAvia in Los Angeles, CA. Photo by Anna Peccianti

CicLAvia in Los Angeles, CA. Photo by Anna Peccianti

CicLAvia in Los Angeles, CA. Photo by Anna Peccianti

CicLAvia in Los Angeles, CA. Photo by Anna Peccianti

The origin of CicLAvia is Ciclovía from Bogotá, Colombia. Bogotá has inspired many innovative transportation planning projects here in the US but the idea of Ciclovía  or “open street” projects may be most popular. These projects can be truly transformative because they allow anyone to experience what our largest public space could be like if it prioritized people instead of cars. The Open Streets Project has created a comprehensive database of projects in almost every state in the country. From New York to Fargo to San Antonio, residents can enjoy lively open streets filled with the rush of people instead of cars

For October’s CicLAvia, some friends and I from the Living Streets Los Angeles volunteer committee, decided to take over a side street along the CicLAvia route in Los Angeles’ Chinatown and turn it in to a street filled with playful activities. Our inspiration for our play street came from the incredible work of urban planner and artist Candy Chang. Ms. Chang transforms public space through engaging participatory art projects that allow residents to use their imaginations to dream of what spaces can become.

One of her wonderful projects is offering fill-in-the-blank stickers that say “I Wish this Was…” which was inspired by community ideas for vacant storefronts in her adopted hometown of New Orleans. These stickers (which can be placed on any empty structure) offer a free, fun activity that allows residents to let their voices be heard and to openly discuss these ideas with friends and neighbors.
Examples from "I Wish this Was..." by Candy Chang. Photo via candychang.com

Examples from “I Wish this Was…” by Candy Chang. Photo via candychang.com

We decide to title our project: “I Wish This Street Was” and set up four cardboard triangles that allowed anyone to imagine what this space could become if it did not prioritize cars. The results were often funny, insightful, and delightful (see photos below). On our street, we featured an interactive workshop, a bicycle decoration station, painting (large cardboard boxes were turned into building facades), games (created with masking tape on the asphalt), and photo booths (also made from cardboard boxes). The entire project was put together for a very low-budget and relied mostly on volunteers and volunteer time and we were all very pleased with the results.
Check out the fun!
I Wish This Street Was presented by Living Streets Los Angeles at CicLAvia. Photo by Living Streets LA

“I Wish This Street Was…” presented by Living Streets Los Angeles at CicLAvia. Photo by Living Streets Los Angeles

Children design their ideal street at "I Wish This Street Was..." presented by Living Streets Los Angels at CicLAvia. Photo by Living Streets LA

Children design their ideal street at “I Wish This Street Was…” presented by Living Streets Los Angeles at CicLAvia. Photo by Living Streets Los Angeles

Photobooth fun at "I Wish This Street Was..." presented by Living Streets Los Angeles at CicLAvia. Photo by Living Streets Los Angeles

Photo booth fun at “I Wish This Street Was…” presented by Living Streets Los Angeles at CicLAvia. Photo by Living Streets Los Angeles

Children painting with their parents for "I Wish This Street Was..." presented by Living Streets Los Angeles at CicLAvia. Photo by Living Streets Los Angeles

Children painting with their parents for “I Wish This Street Was…” presented by Living Streets Los Angeles at CicLAvia. Photo by Living Streets Los Angeles

Photobooth fun during "I Wish This Street Was..." presented by Living Streets Los Angeles at CicLAvia. Photo by Living Streets Los Angeles

Photo booth fun during “I Wish This Street Was…” presented by Living Streets Los Angeles at CicLAvia. Photo by Living Streets Los Angeles

Community ideas about how to transform a street in Los Angles based on "I Wish This Was..." by Candy Chang. CicLAvia, Los Angeles. Photo by Living Streets Los Angeles

Community members envision a new use for a street in Los Angeles (based on “I Wish This Was…” by Candy Chang). CicLAvia, Los Angeles. Photo by Living Streets Los Angeles.

Community members envision a new use for a street in Los Angeles (based on "I Wish This Was..." by Candy Chang). CicLAvia, Los Angeles. Photo by Living Streets Los Angeles

Community members envision a new use for a street in Los Angeles (based on “I Wish This Was…” by Candy Chang). CicLAvia, Los Angeles. Photo by Living Streets Los Angeles.

Cardboard storefront facades painted by participants of "I Wish This Street Was..." presented by Living Streets Los Angeles at CicLAvia. Photo by Living Streets Los Angeles

Paintings by participants of “I Wish This Street Was…” presented by Living Streets Los Angeles at CicLAvia. Photo by Living Streets Los Angeles

October 1, 2012  

Chicago’s Celebration in the Streets

Photo by katiesaba via Flickr.

Look at all the fun to be had at this year’s Open Streets Chicago event!

Inexpensive transformations of our largest public spaces (our city streets) turn concrete slabs built for cars into playgrounds for the entire city.

Check out  more photos from this event here.

September 6, 2012  

Beach Party on Eagle Street

Eagle Street Beach Party and Fiesta. Photo by iBerkshires.


This past July, Eagle Street in North Adams, Mass. was transformed into a beach with beach balls, pails, shovels and 250,000 pounds of sand.

The Eagle Street Beach Party, a free event which started in 1999, is organized by the North Adams Office of Tourism and Cultural Development.  Local vendors give away prizes for creative sand castles an sculptures, and food and music cap the day.

An innovative way to transform a public space in to a surreal and delightful playground.
March 6, 2012  

Sunset Triangle Plaza

Cities like New York and San Francisco have lead the way in the transformation of our largest public space, our city streets. They have successfully created comfortable, vibrant and welcoming public plazas constructed efficiently and  inexpensively by using paint and temporary materials. These plazas can help calm traffic (decreasing incidents of pedestrian and cyclist injury and fatality), encourage walking and cycling (contributing to personal and public health through exercise and the decrease of carbon emissions from cars), and can benefit local businesses (because when you create an attractive space, people are more likely to linger and patronize nearby shops and restaurants.

The hallmarks of these public spaces are their location (converting redundant or wide streets in areas that already have high levels of commercial, pedestrian or cyclist activity), their customizable nature (moveable seating and chairs are always preferable because you can feel comfortable to sit alone or in large groups), and their accessibility (no stairs, adjacent to crosswalks and sidewalks, lots of seating options, shade and visibility).

Madison Square Plaza, NYC. Photo by Anna Peccianti

Los Angeles, with it’s warm weather, wide boulevards and high levels of pedestrian activity in certain neighborhoods could be a perfect playground for these types of public spaces. Last year the Los Angeles Department of Public Health received a grant to decrease obesity rates in Los Angeles and together with the Department of City Planning, they decided to put that money towards Los Angeles’ first street-to-plaza conversion project.

Spearheaded by Streets for People, Frank Clementi of Rios Clementi Hale Studios, and the Los Angeles Departments of Transportation, Planning, Public Works and Public Health; along with the local council office and local community and non-profit groups, Sunset Triangle Plaza was officially opened on March 4th.

Sunset Triangle Plaza. Photo by Anna Peccianti

This particular location was chosen because a) the community had been asking for a pedestrian plaza in this area for over 10 years, b) there was already a twice-weekly farmer’s market in this location so the street already had consistent pedestrian activity; and c) as previously mentioned, the street is redundant and sandwiched between a small triangular park and popular businesses whose patrons were usually crowding the tiny sidewalks with bicycles and belongings.

Sunset Triangle Plaza Draft Plan by Rios Clementi Hale Studios

Sunset Triangle Plaza is a one-year pilot project. Early next year community members, city agencies and elected officials will determine whether or not the plaza will become something more permanent or be converted back in to a street.

Street-to-plaza conversion projects can be hard to visualize if you’ve never seen or experienced one before. The wonderful thing about creating temporary demonstration projects is that they allow a city to inexpensively transform public space so residents can see for themselves just how transformative these types of spaces can be.

Sunset Triangle Plaza from Streets for People on Vimeo.

Sunset Triangle Plaza design by Frank Clementi of Rios Clementi Hale Studios. Sunset Triangle Plaza opening day video by Joel Schroeder.