S&ME, INC.
Location: Broadway | Downtown
Virtual Parklet
The purpose of PARK(ing) Day is to give the urban pedestrian a glimpse at what the city street-scape could look like if there was less space dedicated to the parking of vehicles and more space dedicated to gathering, resting, and reflecting. The urban habitat is rarely welcoming to its human occupants. And with the current Covid-19 global pandemic, humans are in need of public space now more than ever in order to gather safely and responsibly.
For our parklet, we have taken over four parking spaces in a section of Lower Broadway and envisioned a permanent space to address the many needs of the Broadway pedestrian. The main component of our parklet is two ‘urban tree houses.’ These vertically stacked seating structures optimize the limited space between the sidewalk and the street. The covered top level of the treehouse provides built-in seating that allows for a small group of people to gather together for drinks, conversation, and relaxation while practicing social distancing. A metal ladder takes you down from the top level to ground level where two circular swings hang. These swings will tempt people of all ages to sit and sway and people-watch. The metal detailing on the sides of the treehouse is a nod to the metal support systems found on the ever-present construction cranes across downtown Nashville.
We had sustainability in mind when designing this parklet. The area around the treehouse structures sits on brick ‘islands’ surrounded by a built-in rain garden that’s designed to help deal with some of the runoff from the large expanse of Broadway’s asphalt. A small wooden bridge goes over the recessed rain garden and connects the two ‘islands’ together. The treehouses are topped with green-roofs as well as solar panels that will help produce electricity for nighttime lighting on both levels of the structure.
Overall, our goal with this parklet design is to rethink how space in Lower Broadway can be optimized for the wide range of visitors that look to this area of Nashville for entertainment, escapism, and relaxation.