Kit of Parks

Location: Boston, MA
Date: November 2015 - present
Partner: Philip Dugdale, International ASLA

Kit of Parks is a mobile kit of parts to build a park. Constructed of low-cost, lightweight material that can be reconfigured, painted, and branded in a variety of ways, the versatility of Kit of Parks is part of its mass-appeal. Designed to serve under-programmed public spaces, Kit of Parks is a self-contained play unit that can be hitched to the back of a bike and unpacked in under 5 minutes. Kit of Parks injects an immediate dose of color, whimsy, and experimental fun wherever it’s parked.

In the fall of 2015, Kit of Parks was designed and constructed as a prototype teaching tool for the Boston Society of Landscape Architects (BSLA). The prototype was funded by the BSLA and fabricated in Sasaki Associates’ Fabrication Lab. 

In the fall of 2016, Kit of Parks was selected as a winner of the Play Everywhere Challenge, a $1 million national competition, hosted by KaBOOM! The Challenge awarded innovative ideas to make play easy, available, and fun for kids and families in cities across the United States. Kit of Parks was selected as one of 50 winners out of a pool of more than 1,000 applications nationwide. In partnership with the City of Boston Mayor’s Office of New Urban Mechanics, the Boston Parks and Recreation Department, Franklin Park Coalition, the BSLA, the team created a unique plan to design Kit of Parks to be donated to and used by the Boston Parks and Recreation Department as a mobile park. The design team worked with furniture manufacturer FEEK to bring the durable, plastic Kit of Parks to life. The Play Everywhere Challenge is hosted by KaBOOM! in collaboration with the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, Target, Playworld, the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development, and the National Endowment for the Arts.

More information at www.kitofparks.com

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Photo at Boston's Innovation and Design Building courtesy of Ben Gebo (www.bengebo.com)