This year’s Street Seats — Parsons School of Design at The New School’s annual student-designed pop-up seating space presented in collaboration with the NYC Department of Transportation — is constantly evolving.

Designed and built by students of Parsons’ BFA Architectural Design, Integrated Design, and Product Design programs, and overseen by Parsons faculty members Huy Bui and Carlos Gomez de Llarena, the project is one of the sites of Street Seats, a program of the Department of Transportation that enables the creation of seasonal public open spaces at locations where sidewalk seating is not normally available.

The outdoor design project “Street Seats” originated with the collaboration of the two courses named Urban Interaction Design and Design Build, co-taught by AMT’s Design and Technology (DT) faculty, Carlos Gomez de Llarena and the School of Constructed Environments (SCE) faculty, Huy Bui. Street Seats has been featured on the NY Times last Friday in two different articles: New York Today: Pop-Up Parks and Prime Parking Spaces for People, Not Cars.

This year’s Street Seats was constructed using bamboo, a sustainable material; drought-resistant plants, which reduce maintenance needs; and Voltaic Systems Arduino-donated solar panels and LED lights, which connect to a microcomputer that turns the lights on at night and lets their batteries recharge during the day. DT Student Jeana Chesnik’s hard work as the class RA helped  integrate off-the-grid solar powered lighting with Arduino prototype into the installation.