Plaza Móvil Changes Streets Into Pop-Up Parks

Shouldn’t the city become more of a place for relaxation, games, sports and social activities instead of a place for traffic, cars and pollution? Industrial designer Manual Rapoport came up with Plaza Móvil, a portable street park that temporarily takes traffic away from the streets in Buenos Aires and changes them into mobile parks. With recycled materials like car tires and supermarket carts, Rapoport makes mobile street furniture as well as play and game equipment for kids that pops up on streets at hours with low traffic. All elements of Plaza Móvil are easily transportable to other parts of the city. With his project, Rapoport aims to bring instant recreational facilities to the people that don’t live close to parks and playgrounds.

One year ago Rapoport received a runner-up award at the Philips Livable Cities Award with his idea to produce the Plaza Móvil. Like many large cities, Buenos Aires is over-crowded and has a lack of safe, outdoor space for locals to relax and socialize in. With the Livable Cities Award, Philips stimulates ideas to improve city and urban life by supporting initiatives like Park Móvil. Since Rapoport has received the award, he has made great progress in actually making Plaza Móvil happen — he just started the design process of the mobile furniture.

On July 6th, the first Plaza Móvil was inaugurated at Tecnópolis, a massive innovation fair in Buenos Aires, where it filled an indoor spot of 750 square meters. Although the concept is meant for the streets of the city, this first prototype location gave the initiative the possibility to present itself to an audience of over 4 million visitors — a great leap forward for the project and a nice way to test the mobile park’s furniture. We’re looking forward to seeing more of Plaza Móvil!

Related Insights

The Kitchen Square

Cooking Up Community: Transforming a Town Square into an Open Air Kitchen

Once a regular town square in Stockholm, a space has been reimagined to bring people together in a unique way. Architect-artist Elin Strand Ruin, working alongside local women, transformed it into the Kitchen Square — a vibrant open-air kitchen fostering a strong sense of community and connection.

Ghost Rivers

Subterranean Streams: Ghost Rivers Revive Baltimore’s Hidden Past

Artist Bruce Willen is bringing back an old submerged river in Baltimore through a 2.4-kilometre urban intervention.

Fountain

Antwerp to Quiet Traffic with Noise-Cancelling Fountains

The City of Antwerp is planning to install new fountains in the Brilschanspark to help reduce traffic noise. The fountains will generate a calming sound that will help to shield residents from the noise of the nearby highway.