Parking Day 2024 Mutable Spaces BNKC Photo by Bruno BelliPark(ing) Day, an annual worldwide, public art project that reimagines parking spaces into pop-up parks and social spaces for a day, is returning to Toronto this weekend.Organized and coordinated by Dubbeldam Architecture + Design, this years edition will take place from September 19 to 21, 2025, and is inviting people to reclaim street, boulevard, and lot parking spaces, and turn them into temporary micro-parks and community spaces for design, play, and conversation.Park(ing) Daybegan in 2005 as a design activism project by the design studio Rebar, transforming a single parking spot in San Francisco. Since then, it has grown into a global movement that has featured hundreds of installations in more than 35 cities worldwide.In 2022, Dubbeldam Architecture + Design launched the initiative locally with a single activation in the boulevard parking space in front of their studio. Since then, Dubbeldam has expanded the event across the city. In 2024, more than 20 activations were realized across Toronto and the Greater Toronto Area (GTA), involving a wide range of participants, from architecture and design studios to artists, nonprofits, community groups, and residents.The initiative aims to call attention to the need for more accessible and inclusive public spaces in dense urban areas. By encouraging people to think about the use of public space in cities, the initiative raises awareness about the need for more open, green, and social areas in urban environments.It also provides an opportunity to engage in an ongoing conversation about the design and construction of cities and highlights the need to enhance the accessibility and quantity of public open spaces in densely populated urban zones while emphasizing the significance of these spaces for social and environmental interactions.Parking Day 2024 Activate Dubbeldam Photo by Bruno BelliThis years event will showcase a lively mix of installations and activities across the city, each inviting visitors to participate and connect in different ways.Highlights include an open-air library where guests can decorate and personalize books and enjoy live storytelling sessions, a tiny parking spot house, hands-on community projects such as assembling and painting CNC-cut plywood street furniture, a kids craft table, an open mic event, a HIIT class, a mini-habitat featuring native plants, pollinator education, and welcoming spaces to gather, among other installations.To support broader participation and make the event more accessible, Dubbeldam Architecture + Design launched the Park(ing) Day Toronto Grants Program in 2024 to offer grants of up to $500 to support eligible Park(ing) Day activations.For the 2025 event, the grant program continues, thanks to support from this years Grant Partners Arup Canada, SvN Architects + Planners, Dialog and Fast+Epp. Community organizations, non-profits, local groups, and individuals are invited to apply. The grants are intended to cover materials, plants, seating, signage, and other design or programming costs.Park(ing) Day is about rethinking how we allocate public space in our cities. It highlights the importance of prioritizing open, green spaces that foster community. By transforming parking spots into temporary parks and social spaces, we hope to inspire larger conversations about how we can create more accessible, vibrant urban spaces as our cities become increasingly dense, said Heather Dubbeldam, principal of Dubbeldam Architecture + Design.We are all so busy, its difficult for people to find time for activism, but its been said, Be the change you want to see. This is our humble way of making a change for just one day, with the hope that it will spark further discussion and action around the concept of reclaiming public space for people, especially in underserved and more densely populated areas of our city.For more information on how to host your own Park(ing) Day activation, click here or reach out to hello@parkingdaytoronto.ca.The post Park(ing) Day Toronto 2025 returns this weekend appeared first on Canadian Architect.