Samantha Lee Smugala, ’12, is reimagining and redeveloping unused plots of land into beautiful community spaces.
Samantha Lee Smugala, ’12, is reimagining and redeveloping unused plots of land into beautiful community spaces.
Running along Washington Avenue in downtown St. Louis in the fall of 2020, Samantha Lee Smugala, ’12, was struck with inspiration. “Wash Ave was barricaded off to cars, and I was able to see it in a completely new light,” she said.
“I saw so much opportunity to create activity because no one was out and businesses were suffering. I could see what a huge weight the pandemic was on the city.”
Smugala’s idea took shape into Pocketparks, a nonprofit seeking to develop small, underutilized parcels of land to provide communities with beautiful recreational areas.
“We want to integrate into the urban community and bring vibrancy back to downtown,” Smugala said. “St. Louis is an underrated city with such potential. There’s a lot going on here, and I hope Pocketparks can help inspire St. Louis pride and join forces with other organizations hoping to do the same.”
The organization’s first project, the DUC Park, is located in downtown St. Louis on the corner of 10th and Locust streets. To create the park, the lot was cleaned and pet waste stations were installed, allowing the grass to flourish. A color spectrum wall mural was painted, featuring bright shades of coral, turquoise, yellow and lime green. Plans are underway for adding picnic tables and sunshade sails, and bringing food trucks and acoustic bands into the space.
Other projects include spaces in the Laclede’s Landing riverfront district, the West End, and near the innovation hub and technology district Cortex. The last location features a sunflower field. The small scale of each park makes them easier and quicker to plan, fund and develop. That flexibility is imperative for addressing the needs unique to each park’s immediate area.
After identifying land and communicating with landowners, work shifts to community engagement. By spending time in the space, greeting members of the community — both individuals and businesses — and encouraging them to share ideas for the space, Pocketparks aims to fill community gaps and incorporate solutions into their designs. Once parks are finished, the organization plans to return and assess its impact.
“We want to give each space a purpose, whether it’s playing a sport, spending time with your pet, using a giant chess set or simply providing an outdoor dining and work space,” Smugala said. “Creating parks that are beautiful but don’t serve the community’s needs would be a disservice.”
Each park will also feature rotating artwork by local St. Louis artists. Signage will include QR codes for additional information and continued learning in the parks. “Art has the power to transform the look of an entire block,” Smugala said. “Instead of seeing a vacant lot, which is dreary and doesn’t feel very safe, residents see a welcoming space that they want to enjoy.”
Smugala credits her drive to turn Pocketparks from an idea into reality in only eight months to her lifelong love of learning, which began at Maryville. “Some see school as learning tasks, but I felt it was about learning a mindset, a way of thinking that allowed me to be successful at whatever I wanted to do,” she said. “That curiosity was encouraged by my professors.”
Smugala maintains her curiosity by teaching at Maryville as an adjunct professor for interior design. “I started teaching because I love design and sharing my passion with people,” she said. “Design isn’t just an outcome; it’s a tool you use. It’s not just a product; it’s a process.”
Select interior design students have the opportunity to work with Smugala on an upcoming Pocketparks project in Hyde Park, a historic North St. Louis neighborhood. The collaboration is part of Maryville’s new Design Ambassadors program, which is funded by a grant from the Angelo Donghia Foundation.
Smugala’s passion for learning and connecting with others has created enormous value: from creating Pocketparks, to helping students at the outset of their careers, to being inspired and challenged herself. “I’m an interior designer who went outside, and now I feel like I’m the character Leslie Knope from ‘Parks and Recreation’ who was always working to improve her hometown,” she said. “I’ve always wanted to bridge my skill set with public impact work. Public space is the space that we all share. It’s accessible to everyone, it impacts the most amount of people and it gives the city its personality. Now my efforts aren’t just for one client and in one space, it’s for the entire community.”