A look back at Park(ing) Day with ra:ve

On 18 September 2026, the international Park(ing) Day took place, during which parking spaces are transformed into living spaces for a few hours. To mark the occasion, the ra:ve team transformed the car parks in front of the project space at Wilhelmstraße 16 into a temporary open-air living room.

Park(ing) Day in Karlsruhe 

For many years now, events to mark Park(ing) Day have been taking place regularly in Karlsruhe’s Südstadt district on the third Friday in September. Private cars sit unused for an average of around 23 hours a day. Every year, Park(ing) Day therefore asks: ‘What could happen in these spaces instead?’, and offers people the chance to experience alternative uses of public space first-hand.

On this day, public car parks are transformed into lively spaces for socialising, leisure and relaxation: a living room is created using typical indoor furnishings such as a floor lamp, a rug and a sofa, or the space is greened with plants, drawing attention to the alternative meaning of the word ‘park’.

This year, the team from ra:ve – Room for Change also took part in this event.

What’s it like living in Südstadt?

Driven by these and other questions about housing, neighbourhoods and community life in the Südstadt, we exchanged ideas and shared experiences with local residents. Our research is driven by curiosity:

Using a map of the Südstadt, we gathered information on local property ownership. As this information is not publicly available, it remains unclear who owns the buildings in the neighbourhood and how much residential space is already in the hands of large property companies. We have been working on this dataset for the Südstadt for several years now.

Another activity invited participants to map out their neighbourhood on a map and spatially locate its characteristics. The aim was to explore how residents define the boundaries of their neighbourhood, which places they associate with it, and where neighbourhood life actually takes place in everyday life. This brought to light different conceptions of what a neighbourhood is.

We also used question cards to spark a discussion about what actually defines a neighbourhood. Questions such as ‘How many neighbours do you know?’ and ‘What do you share with your neighbours?’ provided insights into different experiences and ways of living together as neighbours.

To make our project space more accessible, we worked with visitors to build a ramp out of interlocking building blocks. This is a cost-effective and colourful way of making spaces that are only accessible via stairs more accessible. Many people got involved and added building blocks, so that the ramp was created bit by bit together with people from the Südstadt.

Towards evening, we enjoyed a cosy dinner together in our open-air living room. Afterwards, we went out and about in the Südstadt to visit other Park(ing) Day initiatives.

Numerous local residents take part in the event, as well as clubs and initiatives that are trialling alternative uses for spaces otherwise occupied by cars. For us, it went without saying that we’d be taking part in Park(ing) Day – because we have room for change!

Many thanks to everyone who dropped by and to those who made this event possible!