A'Beckett Square / © John Gollings

Typically, pop-up parks tend to be fairly small — just a few thousand square feet, if that — but a few noteworthy ones show temporary places can be super-sized, too. In Melbourne, Australia, RMIT University turned a 30,000-square-foot parking lot into a vibrant community space for a game of pick-up basketball or just hanging out. Designed by Peter Elliott Architecture + Urban Design, A'Beckett Urban Square shows the amazing potential of really any empty urban parking lot. At a cost of $1.2 million Australian dollars ($970,000 U.S.), the park is not cheap, but still less than a more fully-realized, permanent park.

The designers told Landezine RMIT students and local residents can now take advantage of a multi-use sports court set up for basketball and volleyball and surrounded by spectator seating.

A'Beckett Square / © John Gollings

Around the perimeter, there are ping-pong tables, BBQs, and bike parking. Colors help differentiate the sports zone from the areas designed for hanging out.  Throughout, WiFi is available, another draw.

A'Beckett Square / © John Gollings

To keep the costs down, there aren't any trees — but the design team bring a sense of green in other ways. One part of the pop-up park has astroturf dotted with planters filled with small trees and bushes.

And along two walls, the university commissioned a work by Melbourne artist Ash Keating meant to evoke an "urban forest and desert landscape." Two panels of green paint represent the forest, while another red and orange panel, the desert. To not contaminate the environment, Keating used airless spray from "pressurized, paint-filled fire extinguishers."

A'Beckett Square / © John Gollings

Peter Elliot Architecture + Urban Design wrote: "Typically 'pop-ups' occupy leftover and underutilised spaces through the use of recycled materials and the clever adaption of everyday found objects. They are often gritty spaces that are curated rather than designed. A'Beckett Urban Square was conceived as a piece of urban theatre carved out of the surrounding city. The design approach was purposefully lean, developing upon the idea of a temporary and demountable installation."

Pop-up parks are also getting bigger in the U.S. though, too. In Washington, D.C., the no-frills but still appealing Half Street Fairgrounds, which is modeled after the Dekalb Market in Brooklyn, New York, and started as a spill-over space for Washington Nationals games, is now home to Truckeroo, a food truck festival and musical events. This space, which also started out as a parking lot, is really just a place to hang out though, without the full range of features that A'Beckett Urban Square has.

Half Street Fairgrounds / Move for Hunger

And in Philadelphia, there's the Spruce Street Harbor Park, which is an estimated 7,000 square feet.

Spruce Street Harbor Market / Jump Philly

Spruce Street Harbor Park / Gallery Hip

An urban beach with hammocks, it really takes advantage of its Delaware River setting. It's also home to food trucks and hammocks galore.