Dallas's Thanksgiving Square is a beautiful secluded park sanctuary in the middle of downtown. Most days the seats outside sit mostly empty.
"We are reimagining what this space could be," Better Block Executive Director Krista Nightengale said. "Thanksgiving Square is a really beautiful space in Dallas, and it's a really magical space in Dallas, but not a lot of people know about it or use it all that often."
The park has the feeling of being disconnected from the area around it. The people walking by it might feel that way too. According to the Centers for Disease Control, 1-in-3 adults in the United States reported feeling lonely.
"There's an epidemic of loneliness," Nightengale said. "A lot of what we're trying to do is just create these kind of spontaneous moments where people can bump into one another and go from strangers to neighbors."
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That's why Dallas-based nonprofit Better Block challenged teams from around the country to design solutions to combat loneliness in the Creating Connections Design Contest at Thanksgiving Square.
"It's coming together really quick," Zac Feltoon of Zac Feltoon Designs in Brooklyn said. "I used to be in an office around colleagues, so I'm actively going through the thing I'm trying to combat with this design!"
"Keep things bold and simple," Lynn Trapp of Team Rock Leaf from Seattle said. "To attract people that are passing by in the park."
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"We were sort of trying to figure out ideas on how we could overcome this wall," Better Block Architect Designer Draven Pointer said standing next to a wall that surrounds Thanksgiving Square. "One of the fun ideas was maybe we could build a slide that goes over it. That seemed like something fun and approachable to all people."
The idea is, that when people get together, connections are made.
"Anything can happen. I think, like, a resource that all people have is each other."
"There's an understanding that you're not the only one dealing with that thing," Feltoon said. "You're not alone."
The community was invited to test out the designs on Thursday. They will be judged and made available through online open source so that anyone, anywhere can build it.
