The Competition

Parks for the People is a design competition that will reimagine America's most spectacular public places — its national parks — by using design as a catalyst to creatively rethink their connections to people and their role as revered natural, social, and cultural destinations.

As a culminating project of Designing the Parks — a partnership to promote well-designed public parks in America — Parks for the People invites student and faculty teams to help build a common foundation of design principles for these extraordinary sites as the U.S. National Park Service embarks upon a new century of park design.

Participating schools will work with park administrators to create model solutions for seven park sites in each geographic region of the U.S., and use these design paradigms to create a stronger national identity for our open space ideals. Throughout the competition, schools will have an opportunity to engage with the Park Service and its rich cultural and historic assets, including access to park leadership, in-depth encounters with park sites, and the chance to build long-term relationships with park staff and resources.

The Questions

Today, as the Park Service prepares to celebrate its centennial in 2016, we face new opportunities to design a greater, richer national park experience. Seeking to inspire the next century of park stewardship, Parks for the People reimagines what national parks can be, asking bold questions that look afresh at park design:

• How can design enhance the park experience?
• How can parks become more accessible?
• What is "preservation" and how can it evolve?
• What new ventures or partnerships could help connect parks to people?
• What is "sustainability" and what is its future role?
• What part can technology play in parks?

The Principles

To advance design excellence across the National Park System, Parks for the People will serve as a testing ground for ideas that grew out of Designing the Parks, an examination of the past, present, and future of park planning and design. Through a two-part conference in 2008, Designing the Parks brought together professionals in history, landscape architecture, architecture, historic preservation, and related fields to explore a unified design vision and produce a preliminary set of design principles to shape national parks in the twenty-first century. Parks for the People will field-test the following six draft design principles on real NPS sites:

1. Reverence for place
2. Engagement of all people
3. Expansion beyond traditional boundaries
4. Advancement of sustainability
5. Informed decision-making
6. An integrated research, planning, design, and review process

We're calling on faculty and students in architecture, landscape architecture, urban design, planning, ecology, preservation, communications, and related fields to join us in bringing these principles to a new era of national park planning and design. Just as important, this competition seeks to inspire the next generation of designers, ecologists, and social scientists to engage the world of civic service. Your vision will help sustain and celebrate public spaces as a core of civic life — parks that are truly for the people.

Competition Brief PDF

This site explains the competition submission requirements. You can also download a PDF version of the competition brief.

The Schedule

2011
August	Competition Brief Distributed to Schools
November 1	Stage 1 Proposals Due
November	Jury/Advisory Committee Evaluation of Submissions
December	Seven Studios Selected for Stage 2
2012
May 15	Studios Submit Final Projects
June 1	Competition Winners Announced
Summer	Awards Ceremony Student Internships with NPS Announced Winning and Finalist Submissions Published