Deep Ellum is a rich, historic neighborhood on the fringe of Dallas’ central business district. Populated with restaurants, bars, retail, and multi-family housing, the neighborhood lacks quality open space. Studio Outside’s office resides in the neighborhood, is engaged in the community, and is invested in its future. As a result, in 2015, Design Future Dallas (a volunteer group of designer activists) hosted an international design competition challenging participants to envision Crowdus Street, an underutilized vehicular side street, as a vibrant, walkable public space in the heart of Deep Ellum. Studio Outside entered the competition and the result afforded the firm the opportunity to test design solutions in the Re-Imagine Crowdus experiment.

Re-Imagine Crowdus was a tactical urbanism exercise that consisted of a month-long transformation of the existing vehicular roadway into a pedestrian space. Intended to serve as a quick and cost-effective experiment to determine the public space needs in the community, Studio Outside and other community leaders conducted a series of engagement meetings that gathered valuable data from neighbors, office tenants, retail owners, neighborhood associations, and other stakeholders. Throughout the month of September in 2016, Crowdus Street was transformed into a new pedestrian plaza offering a variety of seating, street trees, an inventive shade structure, and an art installation gateway. Informed by the neighborhood, the pedestrian plaza was activated with full calendar year of free events such as concerts, holiday festivals, outdoor movies and other programmed activities. Studio Outside utilized a critical process to engage the community and future users to identify and meet their unique needs. This important exercise brought the City of Dallas and neighborhood leaders real-time data informing future development solutions.