Forgotten Spaces

All of us have experienced walking through a sidewalk’s dead zone created by a fenced off lot or an abandoned building. Even in the case of a wide, safe sidewalk, that space makes the neighborhood less walkable. However, it does not have to be that way.

Introducing Forgotten Spaces, an initiative, led by Dallah Design and our partner organization Second Hand Development (SHD), to improve walkability in cities and support the local economy by transforming unused lots into community spaces.

The Forgotten Spaces initiative is split into two parts, development work driven by SHD, starting in Seattle, and the creation of a resource to help communities around the country identify and develop their own neighborhoods. SHD is a consulting firm that works with landowners to transform their properties into temporary community spaces before they break ground on larger scale development. For their first project, they are working to launch a food truck park on an undeveloped lot along Denny Way in Seattle’s South Lake Union neighborhood.

On the Dallah Design blog, we will be showcasing the progress of SHD’s great work; however, since there are hundreds of unused lots around the country, they need other people and organizations with deep understanding of their own neighborhoods to help identify and develop lost spaces. That is where Dallah Design comes into play!

To empower communities and developers around the country to revitalize their neighborhoods, we are creating a database of “forgotten spaces”. We are looking for people to submit unused lots and buildings in the cities they call home. For each submission, we will compile all of the information about the property that is needed to create a proposal for a retrofitting project like zoning, ownership, and financials. The information will live on an interactive map that is accessible to anyone with the goal of lowering the barrier for people to make positive changes in their cities across the United States.

While our last post was about parking lots, this excerpt perfectly describes the impact of developing forgotten spaces:

“When the land is reclaimed from parking lots, you have the opportunity to create something beautiful that enables community, contributing positively to the mental and physical health of ALL people in that neighborhood, and all the while, you can drive just as much if not more revenue than when the land housed cars.”

With the launch of Forgotten Spaces, we invite you to join us in making spaces that people love and allows them to gather in the neighborhoods they call home. As you walk around your own neighborhood or really any city, if you see an abandoned building, half used parking lot, or something of the sort, take a picture of it and submit the address (a link to a map pin works too). While the website is being built, you can submit here or by DMing us on our Instagram. By doing this, you will contribute to a database of spaces that need some love and complete the first step in making a place come to life, acknowledging it’s there.

If it’s beautiful, make it last.