The installation of ‘parkets’ (small green spaces built on parking spots) has become a trend across cities in California that are working to reclaim the street for pedestrian use. Our design for the City of El Segundo originated with this goal in mind, however, the developed proposal takes the value of the ‘parklet’ an additional step further. This project re-imagines the identity of downtown Main Street as a place punctuated by public art and design that stimulates interaction and community.

El Segundo is a small city along the cost just North of Manhattan beach in Los Angeles. We have been working with this city on a range of schemes to explore different urban micro environments that create not only utilitarian urban furniture where people can sit to read, play, sip their coffee, check their email, etc, but create an art space that inspires through its visual richness and offers a place people can engage with. These new parklets are all very different in terms of their design but share a common goal; they each offer a different identity with a range of cultural flash points within the city. The result is a group of small, yet distinct, environments that appeal to different people within a single community.  Variations in their color, design, and character produce a diverse urban landscape of architectural objects that collectively form an artistic and vibrant identity for the city. 

The scheme includes a seating configuration made from industrial aluminum bowls that are aggregated into clusters offering different seating arrangements and heights for people of all sizes and ages. The shading structure is constructed from hundreds of cone shaped aluminum elements that disperse sunlight into colorful shadows on the ground in the day and  becomes a large light fixture at night illuminated by LED’s embedded within the permeable structure.