What is Rebar?
REBAR is an interdisciplinary studio based in San Francisco and operating at the intersection of art, design and activism. Their work encompasses visual and conceptual public art, landscape design, urban intervention, temporary performance installation, digital media and print design.
Rebar remixes the ordinary, repurposes the ubiquitous and restructures the fabric of the urban environment by exposing hidden assumptions and shared meanings embedded in the everyday experience of the built world.
Rebar has exhibited its work and lectured worldwide, including at such venues and institutions as the Venice Architecture Biennale, ExperimentaDesign Amsterdam, ISEA 2009 Dublin, the Yerba Buena Center for the Arts, the American Institute of Architects, the Canadian Center for Architecture, the Harvard Graduate School of Design, Parsons School of Design, U.C. Berkeley, the Univ. of Michigan, the Univ. of Mass. Amherst and many others.
The PARKcycle project
The PARKcycle is a human-powered open space distribution system designed for agile movement within the existing auto-centric urban infrastructure.
While its physical dimensions synchronize with the automotive “softscape” of lane stripes and metered stalls, the PARKcycle effectively re-programs the urban hardscape by delivering massive quantities of green open space—up to 4,320 square-foot-minutes of park per stop—thus temporarily reframing the right-of-way as green space, not just a car space.
Using a plug-and-play approach, the PARKcycle provides open space benefits to neighborhoods that need it, when they need it, as soon as it is parked.
Built in collaboration with the kinetic sculptor Reuben Margolin at his studio in Emeryville, California, the PARKcycle made its debut on PARK(ing) Day 2007 in San Francisco.
The PARKcycle re-programs the urban hardscape by delivering massive quantities of green open space—up to 4,320 square-foot-minutes of park per stop—thus temporarily reframing the right-of-way as green space, not just a car space.