The Blueprint - What is Parkitecture?

Parkitecture is an International Design Contest created by World Urban Parks, which aims to be a worldwide celebration of innovation and creativity.

Parkitecture designs submitted may be landscape, architecture, products or art, hence we present an Open Design Contest to inspire and welcome the widest pool of global talent and excellence. 

The Objectives of Parkitecture comprise of the following:

• To set the context as an Emerging Country
• To create a Brief with the participation of a community
• To address common global challenges, UN Sustainable Goals, and promote urban parks as solutions in our social and natural landscapes through imaginative and visionary and viable design projects.
• To benefit a community through the selection of winning design(s) ideally suited to their neighbourhood urban parks
• Through the process of the contest inspire the local community and global communities and individuals to design, engage and enjoy World Urban Parks more and improve wellbeing!

In 2017 World Urban Parks established the ‘Emerging Cities Region’ to represent underdeveloped or developing regions. One of the criteria is GDP <$25k per capita, to which the city of Culiacán Rosales, in the north-western state of Sinaloa in Mexico, qualifies. Together with its accelerated population growth over the last fifty years from 167K to just over 1,000,000 today, this sixteenth-century city founded by Spanish conquerors, is experiencing immense changes.

As was extensively witnessed during the Covid-19 Pandemic, Urban Parks offered the opportunity to contribute to residents’ well-being on many levels, significantly. However, it also highlighted the greater need for more inclusive, accessible and equitable spaces.

Edition 1 of Parkitecture provides this opportunity to positively impact this ‘emerging city’ and it’s community with over 1,400 spaces for parks, some developed and mostly not, ranging from 200m² to 50 hectares, creatively! 

A principal factor in the choice of Culiacan is the generosity of the Presenter funding the prizes and supporting the 1^st Edition of Parkitecture:

Introducing Parques Alegres - Happy Parks

Founded by a group of local citizens to improve a large park in Culiacán, they then decided to share their experience to support more parks. Its primary mission is to increase peace and quality of life in cities. They believe an active park drastically reduces crime, a significant issue in Culiacán, and increases the value of the real estate in close proximity to park spaces whilst promoting urban parks as ‘happy’ places to be.

Zoom 1

Satellite View Culiacan Parks

We have worked with our Partners and Sponsors, Yobelo to explore in particular ‘healthy green’, and now share this Zoom 1 perspective on the parks in Culiacán. Satellite data was collected from May 2021-May 2022 for each month.

Key points we found:

• Of parks in Culiacan (Total city area=65 Km²) 557 PARKS
• Healthy green, as a percentage of the overall city area (illustrated in the pie charts)

Notably:

• ‘No green’ variation across the year ranged from 59% (December) to 76% (August)
• Extent of ‘High’ and ‘Very High green’ variation across the year ranged from 18% (August) to 1% (Feb., Mar. & Apr)
• Seasonal variations ‘healthy green’ (Bar charts) Least ‘green’ months (Jan-Mar)
• Greenist months (Jul., Aug.,Sept.)

The maps on the following page illustrate the data above and Culiacan’s need for more Green!

 Further interactive maps can be found : Yobelo: Culiacan Interactive Maps:

• To explore ‘healthy green’ maps search: ‘Analysis’ then ‘Green Index’.
• Identify specific parks sites to locate designs. Accessible routes, amenities and much more.

Further interactive maps can be found : Yobelo: Culiacan Interactive Maps:

 Thanks to:

Zoom 2

Survey

Working with our Partners ANPR, also our co-organisers for Parkitecture, we created a survey to listen to the Voices of Park Users in Culiacán on the ground. Parques Alegres kindly distributed and conducted the surveys in parks across the city.

Aims and Structure

• To facilitate a participatory process to Parkitecture with park users in Culiacán.
• To identify strategic interventions which could potentially improve the likelihood of increased useage that could lead to enhanced well-being and therefore reduced healthcare costs to the city and enhanced productivity and lifestyles.
• Survey structure concept based on ‘affordances’ linked to health and wellbeing determinants focusing on: Social, Physical and Aesthetic aspects.
• Short surveys conducted on-site at parks across the city of Culiacán.
• A ‘snapshot’ to provide insights for the Parkitecture Brief towards Thematic Axes.

• 433 questionnaires (95.5% confidence) across over 250 parks in Culiacán. M(31%) F(68%) 83% of participants 25-54yrs.
• 85% live 0-10mins walking distance to neighbourhood park. 60% have dogs. 78% of participants have families 3-5 persons. Over 60% visit the parks with their family.
• More than 50% of participants visit their neighbourhood park more than 4x per week. Nearly 90% of those responding attend their park at least once a week.
• A high preference from respondents to visit their parks 5-8pm, more than 65%. The second most visited time 5-8am with 17%.
• Access for the disabled/elderly was considered very poor by 22.5% 30% noted ramps for disabled did not exist in the park.
• Bicycle access by 20% and 72% noted no parking for bicycles.
• Considerable lack of facilities with respondents noting – 42% WC facilities, 88% cafés, 79% art installations or sculptures. Modest provision of children’s play facilities for the most part.
• Blue spaces within Culiacán parks have a notable absence over 76%.
• Over 75%  have never attended exercise classes at their neighbourhood park.
• There was an extreme absence of all the safety elements in the parks noted by all.
• 27% of participants said there was always lighting provision in the park, conversely 73% of parks do not always have lighting provision.
• The responses on aesthetic ‘excellence’ on all elements ranged from only 3-15%.
• There is also significant room for improvement on benches and cleaning maintenance.
• The top 2 requests for commercialized activity in parks: food stalls/restaurants 36% and bicycle rental at 20% followed by bazaars and bookstalls around 8% each.
• Further qualitative responses were received on climate, describing the park in 3 words and ‘I would visit the park more if…’.  Please follow our Social Media for more insights!

Entrants to the contest are invited to: 

• Select one or more parks within which to site their design proposals and explain their choice.
• Consider the main objectives of Parkitecture contest in their proposal and illustrate their responses clearly to:
• In considering the ‘emerging urban context’ specify suitable materials and technologies within available resources.
• To address common global challenges, UN Sustainable Goals, and promote urban parks as solutions in our social and natural landscapes through imaginative and visionary and viable design projects.
• To benefit a community through the selection of winning design(s) ideally suited to their neighbourhood urban parks
• Through the process of the contest inspire the local community and global communities and individuals to design, engage and enjoy World Urban Parks more and improve wellbeing!
• Review the background context strategic information provided in the Sections: Emerging Urban Context: Culiacán, Zoom 1 and Zoom 2. A single proposal can include one or more details/issues provided in this strategic information from which to create Thematic Axes for the design proposals. As this is an Open Design Brief, proposals are not limited to these alone and entrants may introduce other Thematic Axes for their design proposals. All Thematic Axes should be clearly explained and illustrated.

Submission, Criteria & Process
Eligibility & RegistrationContest Structure Ilustration

The contest is open to professionals and students from the disciplines of architecture, design, and any related field, of legal age from every country in the world, and has two participation options:

Individual projects: formed by a single person.

Group projects: formed by two or three people maximum.

** There is no limit to the number of submissions per person or per group**

All participants must register first at www.worldurbanparks.org in January 2023.

Excluded from the Contest:

• Urban Equipment Factories and Playgrounds Manufactures
• Jury members and their family members.
• Employees of the organizations represented in the jury.
• Organizers, committee members and their family members.

Contact details for enquiries on registration or submission only:

Submission Details

Minimum requirement is 3 x A3 pages to include clearly in English:

• Title of the project
• Name of park sites(s) selected
• Thematic Axes selected
• Concept to include graphics, views, sketches, images - free technique
• Registration reference issued to ensure anonymity of submissions
• An approximate list of materials, timescale and cost on 2 x A4 pages
• A summary text on 1 A4 of no more than 600 words to explain:

What? – What is the project concept, who is it for, choice of park site

How? – How the proposal works and fulfils the objectives of the Open Brief

Why? – The intended impacts

• Additional short video may also be submitted as a link. This is optional.
• Participants certify that the design is their own, original work and that it has never been published before. The submission number issued at registration must appear on each page/material submitted.
• Designs must not have received any award, nor have been presented to any other competition at the time that they are entered for Parkitecture

Your proposal shall abide by the following intellectual and Industrial property rights:

• Participants certify that the design is their own, original work and that it has never been published before.

• Designs must not have received any award, nor have been presented to any other competition at the time they are submitted to this contest.
 All intellectual property rights, as well as possible industrial property rights over the projects submitted, belong exclusively to their authors.

• By submitting their project to the contest, the Participants grant the organizers and sponsors a priority right to the exploitation of the projects for 36 months provided that an agreement is reached with the author of such a project in this sense. 

• Once the winners are contacted they will be asked to consent to their permission for their anonymity to be removed for the purposes of publishing their proposals on the WUP website and social media platforms and any further exhibitions to be announced.
• Participants are responsible for the protection of their submissions by either copyright, design or patent applications, prior to submitting them to the competition.

All participants must observe the following evaluation criteria based on which the proposals will be graded. These must be considered by the participants in the development of their projects and under which the jury will be governed to select the winning proposals:

More information soon...