7. The little park that could. Portland’s Two Plum Park is a testament to the strength of a neighborhood. Once a vacant, overgrown lot, the surrounding community banded together to transform this tiny green space into a city park. Now a local nonprofit is raising funds to install a bench in Two Plum, completing a revitalization that began nearly 15 years ago. Won’t you be their neighbor? It’s our Project of the Day.

    The little park that could.

    Portland’s Two Plum Park is a testament to the strength of a neighborhood.

    Once a vacant, overgrown lot, the surrounding community banded together to transform this tiny green space into a city park. Now a local nonprofit is raising funds to install a bench in Two Plum, completing a revitalization that began nearly 15 years ago.

    Won’t you be their neighbor? It’s our Project of the Day.

    View on Kickstarter
  8. #opengov. Waldo Jaquith likes to know what his legislators are up to. Problem is, the Virginia General Assembly dosen’t archive their proceedings online — they sell each video for $10 per DVD. Jaquith launched a Kickstarter project to purchase every video recording from the 2012-2013 sessions and make them available through Richmond Sunlight and the Internet Archive.

    #opengov.

    Waldo Jaquith likes to know what his legislators are up to. Problem is, the Virginia General Assembly dosen’t archive their proceedings online — they sell each video for $10 per DVD.

    Jaquith launched a Kickstarter project to purchase every video recording from the 2012-2013 sessions and make them available through Richmond Sunlight and the Internet Archive.

    View on Kickstarter

  9. Designing Seaside from scratch.

    Seaside, Florida is, by all accounts, a lovely place to live.

    The first master-planned community in the United States to reflect the tenets of New Urbanism, Seaside is at once a quiet beach town and a laboratory for creative directions in architecture, urban planning, and community development. Visions of Seaside will serve as the definitive guide to the Seaside project, including drawings and commentary from major collaborators on the town’s design and outlines for the future. 

    Visions of Seaside explores the potential of an entirely new town as our Project of the Day.

    View on Kickstarter
  10. How’s the air up there? Urban Air is an experimental bamboo forest high above a Los Angeles freeway.  Surrounded by concrete, bad drivers, and worse advertising, the LA commute feels like the ultimate environmental disconnect. Urban Air seeks to subvert that daily alienation — one billboard at a time. The idea is pretty simple: Take disused billboards, remove the commercial facade, and install a living, breathing cloud forest of bamboo. Time to reclaim the asphalt jungle and score one for the trees — it’s our Project of the Day.

    How’s the air up there?

    Urban Air is an experimental bamboo forest high above a Los Angeles freeway. 

    Surrounded by concrete, bad drivers, and worse advertising, the LA commute feels like the ultimate environmental disconnect. Urban Air seeks to subvert that daily alienation — one billboard at a time. The idea is pretty simple: Take disused billboards, remove the commercial facade, and install a living, breathing cloud forest of bamboo.

    Time to reclaim the asphalt jungle and score one for the trees — it’s our Project of the Day.

    View on Kickstarter
  12. Birds of Ohio. A once derelict bridge underpass has been rejuvenated by ALTernative, a community design group based in Columbus, Ohio. Earlier this year the team set out to transform an underpass caked with grafitti into a space that not only enhanced the landscape, but featured it. They painted over the scattered tags to create a new mural featuring 35 bird species native to Ohio.  It’s been five months since the project ended and the team has just been honored with the 2012 Presidential Award award from the Columbus Landmarks Foundation. Even more exciting, a new grant has been established which will continue to ensure that the mural, and its surrounding park, are maintained for years to come.  

    Birds of Ohio.

    A once derelict bridge underpass has been rejuvenated by ALTernative, a community design group based in Columbus, Ohio. Earlier this year the team set out to transform an underpass caked with grafitti into a space that not only enhanced the landscape, but featured it. They painted over the scattered tags to create a new mural featuring 35 bird species native to Ohio. 

    It’s been five months since the project ended and the team has just been honored with the 2012 Presidential Award award from the Columbus Landmarks Foundation. Even more exciting, a new grant has been established which will continue to ensure that the mural, and its surrounding park, are maintained for years to come.  

    View on Kickstarter
  13. Urban playground. San Francisco’s Come Out and Play festival will transform the city into a giant outdoor playground. The free, volunteer-organized event includes an exhibition of collaborative, public street games that opens this weekend at SOMArts. The Festival proper goes down December 1-2, with large-scale, live games throughout the neighborhood. RSVP to skip the lines at the opening party tomorrow night!

    Urban playground.

    San Francisco’s Come Out and Play festival will transform the city into a giant outdoor playground.

    The free, volunteer-organized event includes an exhibition of collaborative, public street games that opens this weekend at SOMArts. The Festival proper goes down December 1-2, with large-scale, live games throughout the neighborhood.

    RSVP to skip the lines at the opening party tomorrow night!

  14. No more tears.

    Acceptable Reasons to Cry in Public is a participatory art project by “A Girl in Salt Lake City.” The girl in question (a writer and artist from the University of Utah) launched a Kickstarter project to find support for her publication, solicit stories from backers, and deputize a crew of curator-distributors.

    It worked. She sold out the entire run of the broadsheet and got hundreds of strangers invovled, resulting in a simultaneous exhibition wherever her backers live. Beginning this morning, all 336 backers will post three copies of the essay in public places, documenting each installation and sending the results back to the artist.

    Getting all the essays mailed out in time proved to be a little tricky, when Mother Nature intervened with a snowstorm. But the artist, her collaborator  and a friendly employee of the USPS managed to wrangle each publication out to its backer. We’re looking forward to the teary results.

  15. Live from Times Square. Congratulations to the entire team behind Peace & Quiet — a temporary pavilion installed in the heart of Times Square. Constructed in time for Veterans Day, the architectural intervention is designed to provide a calm and inclusive environment for soldiers and civilians to discuss military service. Check out the live feed from the square! And for those readers in the city, make a reservation online and visit the dialog station from now through Friday.

    Live from Times Square.

    Congratulations to the entire team behind Peace & Quiet — a temporary pavilion installed in the heart of Times Square. Constructed in time for Veterans Day, the architectural intervention is designed to provide a calm and inclusive environment for soldiers and civilians to discuss military service.

    Check out the live feed from the square! And for those readers in the city, make a reservation online and visit the dialog station from now through Friday.