Teen Art Park: A Place for Artistic Expression

Anycia Lee and Evian Olivares.

Building community between teens was the focus for Team FREESOL’s design. Their belief that “art is social and social is art,” led to an exploration of the connection between teens, their art, their community and their sense of self. The intersection of all three influenced the design of an art park where street art provided a transformative canvas. One of Team Freesol’s main goals was to maintain the informal street feel of youth art culture while providing more formal spaces for teens to display their art. The teams initial design for the park contained areas devoted to individual studios— private, focused places that allow teens to concentrate on their own art— as well as unsanctioned, unprogrammed areas to give the teens the freedom to explore and create without restraint. Team FREESOL included mural blocks for displaying artwork, a grass field to serve as a public square, an open-air cafe with fire pit and an undulating path that would run the entire length of the park and perform double duty as an art walk— where the talent and individuality of the teens could be showcased— and as a walking path. Additional programs envisioned included: “the Tunnel,” an educational introduction to the park, a sculpture garden, and “Up and Down” elevated pathways to allow for, and encourage, new perspectives, and would end at personal studios and classrooms where workshops could be held. FREESOL was also interested in inviting the community to participate in the park, so their original designs called for the street to be activated via the strip of land adjoining the park, Team FREESOL invited the community to participate in the park and the teens to participate in life outside the park, as well inside it. When the focus of the class shifted from designing a site-specific space to building a full-scale 20’x20’ modular prototype, FREESOL decided that their main focus needed to be creating a safe, welcoming environment where teens could enjoy being themselves and discover ways to turn what they already love doing into a money-making endeavor. In the end, their site included a basketball hoop, an elevated platform for relaxation and hanging canvases that could be rolled out of the structure, painted on and then removed for display elsewhere.

Adam Patrick Easter Cottingham and Breon Waters II

The central idea behind ArtPas’ Teen Art Park project was defined as: “A place to chill, a place to be heard, a place to grow.” It was envisioned as a new kind of creative space for teens, one that looked at specific issues “pressing down” on adolescents today: censorship, gangs, and teen pregnancy. The art park as imagined by ArtPas would serve as both a support structure and second family. Team ArtPas’ approach to the project began by posing two critical questions: How do we create a place where people feel they belong? How can we create an environment where conversations can take place and people will work together? Research provided some answers regarding the vital benefits of play and the psychological effects of color–teens react more to shocking colors. The group incorporated research and ideas regarding the role of space to facilitate creativity. What they came away with was a concept for a park that utilized a diversity of physical areas for a broad range of uses: art, performance, and “chill spots,” which are places to unwind and allow for un-programmed time. Another important aspect of the design process was creating a space where the teens felt comfortable and at home. They wanted the Teen Art Park to be a place that they could call their own. Shipping containers to create niches were envisioned, as was a central “urban tree” that, acting similarly to the communal “big oak tree” in rural settings, could display art and act as a focal point for meeting, relaxing, thought and storytelling, a billboard jungle that would provide a giant canvas for artistic expression, an art gallery, a moveable garden, mobile platforms to re-organize space, and privacy screens made of reeds to give respite from the world. After weighing additional feedback from teens, partners and their instructors—and after adjusting their plans from creating a site-specific structure to a smaller and more mobile modular system—the team designed and built what they called a “miniature urban fun zone,” built around a miniature half-pipe for skateboarding, billboards for spray-painting and a row of lounge chairs for relaxation. The Teen Art Park, as imagined by Team ArtPas would provide the familiar and welcome the unfamiliar, and be a place where people could step out and grow.

Seth Baker, Hugh Chuang and Thomas Kong.

The desire to create an organic space that could meet teens wherever they are informed The Hub’s initial explorations. From the very beginning, their project centered around a modular system that could constantly change, much like the teens for whom they were designing. To create an adaptable park filled with places that teens could choose to either escape to or actively engage with, The Hub took inspiration from D.I.Y. and Lo-Fi culture and envisioned a “cross-over” environment that would fuse natural and man-made elements. Their initial designs for the park called for a green space, a space for artistic expression, a space to present art and unwind, a family area for teen moms to play with their children and, perhaps most importantly for teen development, “undefined spaces.” Team HUB originally envisioned the park being divided into three sections: the front of the park would be geared towards teens and act as a place for artistic expression; the park’s versatile center, aka “The Grid,” would serve as a place to display art, to unwind and as an area for families and teens to interact, thus serving as a bridge between different demographic groups within the community; and the back of the park would play host to a family area, including a playground for teen moms and neighborhood children. The plan also held the possibility of a graffiti wall that would serve as a first introduction to art, as well as a way to elicit the teen voice, allowing it to be expressed clearly, freely and with tolerance. As the parameters for the park shifted and the class switched from conceptualizing a site-specific structure to building a full-scale modular prototype, the team members found themselves needing to distill their project’s ideas down its most critical elements. Once they did this, they realized their most important goal was to give at-risk teens a space where they could defy societal expectations. To reinforce this concept, The HUB focused on incorporating everyday objects in new and unexpected ways, most dramatically exhibited in its usage of foam swimming pool noodles to create a topography for relaxing, as well as the large cylinders that do quadruple duty as lounge chairs, spray paint storage units, paintable surfaces and a “boom box” of sorts for MP3 players. Through its use of unexpected materials and objects and its focus on giving teens a space that they can inhabit and take over, the Teen Art Park, as envisioned by The Hub, would allow youth to both express themselves, to relax among their peers, and to re-imagine their possibilities.