Brum Park(ing) Day 2025
Right to left: Councillor Majid Mahmood (Cabinet Member for Environment and Transport at Birmingham City Council), Matthew Alexander (JQBID), and Jessica Shearman (Define)
Last month, Define was delighted to be involved in the transformation of the Jewellery Quarter (JQ) for Brum Park(ing) Day with support from the Jewellery Quarter Business Improvement District (JQBID), Birmingham City Council, and JQ Common Room Microgrants. Other businesses and organisations from the Jewellery Quarter and beyond were invited to reimagine - if only temporarily - traditional parking bays into vibrant pop-up parks, creative installations, and welcoming community spaces.
As urban neighbourhoods face growing challenges such as social isolation and climate change, Park(ing) Day offers a powerful way to demonstrate how a single parking space can be transformed to serve the broader needs of the community, beyond simply spaces for cars.
For this year’s event held on 19th September, Caroline Street, a vibrant location within the JQ, was chosen to showcase how small pockets of urban space can be repurposed into areas for community gathering and interaction, play and recreation or even being used as a mini green park.
Caroline Street AFTER
Caroline Street BEFORE
Why it matters to the Jewellery Quarter and to us…
While Park(ing) Day is by nature symbolic and temporary, its resonance is amplified in the context of both the JQ and Define’s work. One of the purposes of Park(ing) Day is to act as a ‘proof of concept’ - a small, low-cost temporary intervention that might seed longer-term public realm improvements. We explicitly hope the event will spark fresh ideas about how small urban spaces can be reimagined into usable places for people.
In a district that is already undergoing change and development, experiments like this help test what works at street level before committing to large capital projects.
Spaces for people…
We would like to thank everyone who contributed to the success of the event - from our partners, to the general public and to those who stumbled upon it by chance. At its heart, Park(ing) Day is about people! The event reminds us that public spaces truly come alive when communities take part.
We would like to extend our heartfelt thanks to all the incredible collaborators who helped bring this event to life. Special thanks go to the JQBID, Birmingham City Council, JQ Common Room Microgrants, Enterprise Zones for their unwavering support and vision. We are also deeply grateful to Delly Heaven, Divide & Conker, Genie Printing & Mailing, Landmark, Otto, Toblemore, Trentina, Tyler Grange, and Whiting Landscape, whose contributions and creativity played a vital role in shaping this vibrant celebration. Additionally, a huge thank you to the talented teams from Edge, Fira, Quartermasters, and BPN Architects, whose hands-on work helped to transform Caroline Street into a dynamic and welcoming ‘Park(ing) Spaces’.
