An early investigation into the quality of the 'green space' provided by neighborhood in New York City confirmed for us that more affluent neighborhoods are designated more and higher quality green space.
Central Park hosted hundreds of social distancing bubbles during the peak of the pandemic
A deeper dive into green space allocations in New York by neighborhood (broken up into predominantly White and Non-White neighborhoods), and the 'Subjective Wellbeing' and COVID cases (data gathered from 20 urban areas in the United States) confirmed our theory that underserved populations in denser cities with less green space and starker demographic and racial divides such as New York City, Los Angeles, and Chicago, experienced not only higher rates of COVID-19, but also lower levels of subjective well-being, as compared with cities with more green space and more green space.
Space-Race Inequity
Haves and Have Nots
Stay ON the Grass was born out of an early COVID era hunch that underserved, less affluent, neighborhoods of color, and historically redlined neighborhoods were experiencing higher levels of physical and mental health deficits than their more affluent counterparts due to the lack of accessible green space to recreate and gather. The moniker, 'Stay ON the Grass' is a quip on the commonly used 'please stay off grass' signs which signifies that a community could even have enough green space to gatekeep and police 'unusable' grass.
A park in the Bronx with trees surrounding it, but no usable green space to speak of
STAY ON THE GRASS [V2]
How can we gatekeep green space when there's not enough to go around; for underserved populations, and for the world?
Installation Design, Urban Design
Type
Stay ON the Grass, COCOLAB
Client
60 SF / Parklet
Size
2022
Completed
Sang Pham, Erika Beehler
Collaborators
Accessible equitable green space
SOTG is a response to and inspired by unfairly distributed green space. The 6' wide social distancing bubbles chalked on lawns and parks across the country is the pandemic era version of 'please stay off grass' signs in that only neighborhoods with space and grass to sacrifice can create recreational social distancing opportunities--a form of resilience afforded by relatively few.
Stay ON the Grass takes the 6' diameter chalk bubble (with grass and all) and folds it into an elevated concave dish, to be deployed wherever heavily paved spaces can afford.
Form Creation
CNC routed pieces
Structural ribs with no hardware
Chicken wire and blocking for stiffening
Recycled garden hoses for padding
CNC routed kerf bent edge panels
SOTG is a response to and inspired by unfairly distributed green space. The 6' wide social distancing bubbles chalked on lawns and parks across the country is the pandemic era version of 'please stay off grass' signs in that only neighborhoods with space and grass to sacrifice can create recreational social distancing opportunities--a form of resilience afforded by relatively few.
Stay ON the Grass takes the 6' diameter chalk bubble (with grass and all) and folds it into an elevated concave dish, to be deployed wherever heavily paved spaces can afford.
SOTG on Tour
Sustainable and equitable pocket parks
ON
With the desire to display Stay ON the Grass more seriously in urban areas, SOTG needed a brand identity that represented its concept and mission, while embodying its beginnings as a homegrown guerilla design installation and creative outlet.
Branding and Graphics
The large 24" x 36" format poster depicts SOTG's mission as abstracted paving (white, rectilinear) being converted to green space (green, round).
