The City of Columbia invites YOU to participate in Columbia’s 10th Annual PARK(ing) Day!
June 30, 2025
PARK(ing) Day is an annual open-source global event where citizens, artists and activists collaborate to temporarily transform on-street parking spaces into “PARK(ing)” spaces: temporary public places. The mission of PARK(ing) Day is 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…at least until the meter runs out!
We are excited to announce that the City of Columbia, in partnership with the South Carolina Chapter of the American Society for Landscape Architects and One Columbia for Arts and Culture, is again helping to facilitate PARK(ing) Day, a national event that takes place on Friday, September 19, 2025. This event is about reclaiming on-street parking spaces as public space for people, for one day out of the year (10:00 a.m.- 3:00 p.m.). Participants design and install temporary elements that can include seating, art, games, plants, etc. to encourage people to interact in the public right-of-way.
This is our tenth year temporarily transforming Downtown Columbia.
This year, the PARK(ing) Day theme builds on the recent Downtown Columbia Strategic Plan and Guidelines and we’re asking you to think more about how you’d like to plan your public realm to create more engaging and attractive public spaces in Columbia. You can use the plan’s big ideas for inspiration, or design your own perfect daydream for Columbia. The creativity is up to you!
What is the public realm? It’s that part of our urban fabric that is made up of publicly owned places and spaces that belong to and are accessible by everyone; our streets, plazas, sidewalks, trails, parks, open spaces, and more. The pedestrian realm, which encompasses the open space between a building’s face and the curb, is host to any number of streetscape elements that help contribute to a pleasant, walkable city. How would you populate the pedestrian realm? The possibilities are endless.
We want you to BRING it.
Can you believe it’s been a decade since our first PARK(ing) Day in Downtown Columbia? We are so excited to celebrate with you and to see how you build on the many creative parks we’ve seen these past nine inspiring years of tactical urbanism!
PARK(ing) Day is all about collaborative creativity.
PARK(ing) Day is about designing open space that not only attracts but also engages the community through the physical design of the space itself. Your park can be a nice place to sit and read. It can be a place for a sculpture. It can be an outdoor art gallery. It can be a botanical garden. It can foster community dialogue. It can be a picnic area. It just takes a bit of imagination and an application.
How to Par(k)ticipate:
- Find out more, and get the application at columbiacompass.org/parklets
- Plan your park and remember this year’s theme is a broad one. We’re asking you to think about how you’d Plan Your Public Realm as part of your design!
- Get the necessary insurance, or if you are an artist or with an arts organization, contact One Columbia ([email protected] or 803-254-5008) for support
- Reserve your space(s) – parking space reservations are first come, first served! https://bit.ly/2025Meters
- Submit the full application by 5:00 p.m. on Friday, August 29, 2025 (you’ll receive a link to submit the full application after you reserve your spaces)
There WILL be prizes.
This year, we’re holding our fifth annual PARK(ing) Day Design Contest, and up for grabs are a People’s Choice Award and a juried Best Design Award. Winners get bragging rights, as well as some fun, locally-sourced, prizes. It’s our tenth year of PARK(ing) Day and we know the competition will be steep, so we’re working to pull together some extra special prizes this year, too!
To learn more about PARK(ing) Day in Columbia, visit https://columbiacompass.org/
Photo: City of Columbia
