Pocket Park & Pallis

The Pocket Park Ideal

Even a small 13 x 15 metre site can contain the following:

• Green walls filter the city air, dampen traffic noise and become a habitat for small creatures
• Surface water ponds purify rainwater
• Nesting boxes affixed to lamp posts attract bird life
• Beehives home bees that pollinate plants and produce honey

As well as a pleasurable place for people to socialise and reflect, Pocket Parks can also inform and inspire people with ideas to realise at home on balconies, gardens or courtyards. For example, seed exchanges let visitors take a bit of the park home with them, as well as letting them build relationships with others by contributing seeds in return. The Pocket Park can also host community events; extending the park season to become year-round places of interest and supporting local, grassroots expressions of culture.

Pallis: democratic architecture in action

The Pallis pop-up park put all of these concepts in action. For the duration of June 2015, cars were banned from a small section of Stockholm’s Södermalm while the community took over to design and programme their very own Pocket Park. Pallis evolved to include DIY jewellery making and skateboard deck design workshops, foodtrucks, DJs and live performance, as well as group tutorials on how to design and make horticultural and ecosystem services that underpinned the park. At the end of the month, all parts of the park were taken by visitors to be repurposed in their own homes and neighbourhoods.

Taking control of the city

There was an unexpected outcome of the Pallis project. As a direct consequence of Pallis, the city has made it easier for citizens to influence their environment and engage with the architectural process. In conjunction with Stockholm City’s Traffic Office and the Swedish Property Federation, The Citizen’s Handbook of Urban Development came into being. Key highlights include the introduction of new deposit rates and more flexible ways to rent the city’s public land. Minor non-commercial events are eligible for zero tariffs in order to increase urban cultural amenity. It is also makes it easier to build temporary parks in parking spaces. Pallis is a prime example of democratic architecture in action; a collaborative initiative that actively improved mutual wellbeing in a densely populated urban environment.