Tucson al Fresco: A Toolkit for Decentralized Streetscape and Streatery Design

Abstract

The Covid-19 Pandemic forced a dramatic reimagination of public space. To reconcile the seemingly dueling requirements of public health and quotidian activities, people developed a diverse quiver of strategies to reconfigure the public realm, be it open air markets, pedestrianized neighborhood streets, a shift towards outdoor dining, etc. This report explores how one of these responses – streateries, an expansion of dining and drinking space into the public realm -- could be formally integrated into our post-pandemic urban fabric. Working with local municipalities, small businesses deployed streateries to great effect during the pandemic, building them quickly with only informal, on-hand materials. This ad hoc, often grassroots response was a global experiment in design deregulation. This report formalizes a process for decentralized and democratized streetscape design in order to institutionalize lighter, quicker, cheaper strategies and tools so that their practice and benefits can be more easily understood, more quickly deployed, and more equitably shared. The result is a toolkit for those wanting to start their own streatery or streatery program.