Parks should elevate.

After visiting Housing Works’ Design on a Dime, I was lucky enough to spend some quality, sun-soaked time at my favorite place in New York: the High Line. One of the park’s most distinctive features is that it’s elevated above the street, which does a surprisingly good job of transporting you out of your everyday rhythm. Seeing New York from a completely different perspective almost makes it seem like you’ve traveled to a different city. In the winter, the High Line is also one of the only places to find clean snow in public, which really makes it seem like you’ve left Manhattan.

May 8′s daily design idea is consider the need for escapism when designing an urban park. The feeling that you’re on a mini-vacation is one of the many great things that the High Line offers. It’s also a design characteristic in public spaces that can quickly and effectively pick up a visitor’s spirits (at least it always does for me).