Veenu Jayaram, a recent graduate of landscape architecture at the University of Southern California has suggested a multitude of programs for parking spaces such as sports courts, markets, and green spaces: Sustainable Car Parks:

The comments on the Sustainable Car Parks blog post seem to suggest another program: spaces for homeless shelters… which reminds me of The homeless vehicle project by krzysztof wodiczko:

This vehicle is neither a temporary nor a permanent solution to the housing problem, it articulates the fact that people are compelled to live on the street and that this is unacceptable. Through discussions with those people in new york city, a proposal for a vehicle to be used both for personal shelter and can and bottle collection and storage was developed. an earlier design was shown to potential users and modified according to their criticism and suggestions. it is not put forward as a finished product, ready for use on the streets, it attempts to function as a visual analog to everyday objects of consumption, such as food vendor carts. it bears a resemblance to a weapon, the movement of carts through new york are acts of resistance.

Why blogging this? Because I have been interested for some time by efficient spatial management, and how technologies can be used to achieve that. Think about the projects of the Smart Cities group! I wrote about ditributed storage spaces and spatial management in: “Environnement néo-nomades, système écologique ?” in Fred Dervin et Aleksandra Ljalikova, Regards sur les mondes hypermobiles: Mythes et réalités (Paris, L’Harmattan: 2008); pp. 19-36. It is also a topic I am currently investigating further. As for the homeless vehicle project, I like the object of resistance as much as the fact that potential users were given the opportunity to modify the design (which relates to the participatory aspect of design (crowdsourcing is another example) and the rise of neo-vernacular architecture and design.