Small Spaces, Great Impact: A Parametric Approach to Pocket Parks for Sustainable Urban Design

This study aims to identify the defining characteristics of pocket parks and evaluate their ecological and socio-economic significance by analyzing their contribution to sustainable development, in alignment with the 17 United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). This research highlights the benefits of green spaces and pocket parks in relation to the three core pillars of sustainability, mapping them directly onto specific SDG Targets and indicators. This framework informs the creation of a streamlined, early design indicators toolkit. The toolkit’s practical utility is then evaluated and validated through its application to four real-world case studies, where the performance of pocket parks is assessed regarding their contributions to urban sustainability. The selected case studies represent diverse morphological typologies and operational attributes. To embed sustainability benefits into the active planning process, their spatial design criteria were cross-examined to identify structural interconnections, which were subsequently translated into a parametric model. Each design parameter is analyzed with emphasis on the relationships among spatial elements rather than on their absolute metric values. The study develops a procedural design sequence that, when applied to any site boundary, generates the essential spatial characteristics defining a pocket park. The results demonstrate that this parametric approach establishes the adaptability and effectiveness of pocket parks as versatile urban green spaces, regardless of available plot size or geometric configuration.