---
title: "Plaza / Parklet"
url: "https://commonwaysystem.org/patterns/facilities/plaza-parklet/"
id: "FAC-PLZ-07"
description: "A public gathering space reclaimed from roadway or parking space, ranging from a single parking-space-sized parklet to a full intersection-corner plaza."
updated: "2026-09-26"
---

# Plaza / Parklet

`FAC-PLZ-07`

Recommended Facility

Plaza / Parklet

A public gathering space reclaimed from roadway or parking space, ranging from a single parking-space-sized parklet to a full intersection-corner plaza.

## Related Media

The items below come from outside the Commonway System, external videos, podcasts, and articles related to this page's topic, not part of the guidebook itself.

Aligned

### [Can U.S. Cities Build Narrow European Streets?](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iv9fWEekFUM)

City Beautiful

The video contrasts rigid, car-scaled American grids with the organic narrow streets of older European cities, using Philadelphia's Elfreth's Alley and Quince Street as rare U.S. examples, and names fire-truck access, parking minimums and zoning as the barriers to building more. It is a direct look at the Commonway System's Grid and Organic/Irregular network patterns and the narrow, shared local street patterns, from Alley to Living Street and Pedestrian Plaza.

## Why this pattern exists

Streets historically allocate nearly all their space to vehicle movement and storage; this pattern documents the deliberate conversion of some of that space into space for people to sit, gather, and linger, a use case with its own siting, furnishing, and drainage considerations distinct from a sidewalk widening alone.

## Key considerations

-   Site selection should account for sun exposure, adjacent building frontage activity, and pedestrian flow; a plaza with no reason to stop rarely gets used[2]
-   Drainage must be resolved deliberately, since converted roadway space was not designed to shed water toward a pedestrian-occupied surface[1]
-   Where a parklet occupies a former parking space, physical protection from adjacent traffic (bollards, curb, planters) is necessary, not optional

## Related patterns

[Curb Extension](https://commonwaysystem.org/patterns/elements/curb-extension.md) (ELM-CBE-02) (related Element pattern, since a plaza often anchors at a curb extension or corner); [Bench](https://commonwaysystem.org/patterns/elements/bench.md) (ELM-BCH-31), [Street Tree](https://commonwaysystem.org/patterns/elements/street-tree.md) (ELM-STT-28) (common furnishing elements)

## References

1.  Precedent-based [WSDOT Design Manual, Chapter 1238, "Parklets and Plazas." Drainage, catch-basin avoidance, and railing/planter separation from traffic.](https://wsdot.wa.gov/publications/manuals/fulltext/m22-01/1238.pdf)
2.  Precedent-based [NACTO Urban Street Design Guide, "Parklets, Pop-ups and Street Seats." Siting principles (sun exposure, adjacent frontage activity).](https://nacto.org/publication/urban-street-design-guide/interim-design-strategies/parklets/)