Archinect - News

Melbourne considers the future potential of high-rise parking areas as urban farms

2023-08-17T12:17:00-04:00

Urban farms and communal spaces are among the ideas for repurposing car park floors in Melbourne’s skyscrapers in the future, when it is predicted that residents will rely more on driverless and shared electric cars. The architects of Melbourne’s tallest building, Australia 108, have created designs envisioning the transformation of the building’s 10 levels of car parking into space for a vertical farm, beehives, water collection and storage, pet care, podcast studios, co-working and education.

Downtown Melbourne's potential future scenario of widely-available self-driving cars has developers rethinking millions of square feet worth of parking garages, and vertical farms are seen as a solution (along with housing, retail, and dining options). An amendment to its planning rules that would require new parking structure designs to include their retrofitting consideration has been proposed that would add an extra layer to the pedestrian-friendly ambit that mirrors policies in Oslo, Barcelona, and other global cities.

According to The Age, a 2019 City Council survey suggests an overwhelming majority (95%) of Melbourne residents support the idea of reducing vehicle traffic in Southbank by 2030.

Are vacant parking lots affecting the cost of housing? A new study in Boston sheds light on the issue

2019-08-06T20:59:00-04:00

A widespread over-supply of parking in metro Boston residential developments is driving up the cost of housing and may encourage people to own cars who otherwise would not, according to a new study by the Metropolitan Area Planning Council.

What’s the true cost of parking?

In 2014, Sarah Goodyear wrote a piece for CityLab titled "How Parking Spaces are Eating Our Cities Alive" that provides a framework for answering the question. In her article, Goodyear discusses how the average parking space takes up about 300 square feet, or “the size of a studio apartment in New York,” according to the article. That wasted space is compounded across the average city, Goodyear argues, creating vast areas that are not only heavily dependent on cars, but that also contain lots of empty parking spaces much of the time.

This begs the question: exactly how many 300-square-foot parking spaces are being left vacant? It's alarming to reflect on the amount of unused real estate that’s being taken up by parking, especially when we consider how these spaces happen to correspond in size to a much-needed housing type. If these unused parking spots were converted to apartments, would the cost of housing fall?

In Boston, a study by the Metropoli...

Ennead Architects envision the "Charging Towers" of the near, electric-car future

2017-04-07T12:15:00-04:00

If electric cars are the future, what will be the future the gas stations? Charging stations, of course—but what would they look like? The New York-based firm Ennead Architects has proposed a “charging tower” for an undisclosed client in Shanghai.

Inspired by Tesla charging stations (the renderings feature Model S cars), their “Charging Towers” are designed to work in small, pedestrian-oriented urban environments. In order to maximize the number of cars charging at once, the Tower makes use of existing stack-parking technology. In short, the ground level would feature “super charge” stations while the top would allow for a slower charge that doubles as a parking space.

To make the things pretty, the towers are clad in a reflective, perforated metal envelope “recalling the chrome-filled aesthetic history of the automobile and creating a beacon for those searching for parking and car charging,” according to the the architects.

H/T Electrek

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Kirksey Architecture selected to retrofit Houston's Astrodome

2016-12-23T13:14:00-05:00

Harris County commissioners have chosen Houston-based Kirksey Architecture to design a project to retrofit the Astrodome by raising its floor and installing parking spaces underneath. The $105 million project -- unveiled by county officials in September -- is the most recent attempt to secure the building's future. [...] Many feared then that the world's first multi-purpose domed stadium for sporting events would face the wrecking ball.

Houston "Eighth Wonder of the World" previously in the Archinect news:

From housing cars to housing people: the case for designing adaptable parking garages

2016-11-09T15:57:00-05:00

LMN Architects [...] wants the tower to survive 50 to 100 years. “If that’s the case, we do need to make sure—I feel we do have have the responsibility—that if the parking uses do change, we design to be able to adapt to that change,” [...] the coming transformation to a car-free-ish future. With rideshare, bikeshare, carshare, increasing transit options, and fully automated vehicles on the horizon, cities are less eager to allocate precious space for empty, parked cars.

LMN Architects' proposed Seattle tower — potentially the tallest on the West Coast — previously in the Archinect news:

Flexible Parking Structures as Civic Catalysts

2014-11-24T14:55:00-05:00

First, parking structures need to be used for longer periods of the day and for different purposes, both public and private. [...] Second, parking structures need to be designed as flexible structures that can accommodate transitions from parking alone to a variety of other uses as parking ratios decline with further mixed-use development and increased use of shared parking facilities and transit.

Robot Ray Parks Your Car At The Airport

2014-11-03T13:08:00-05:00

Are you in a hurry to catch your flight and still need to find a parking place? Meet Ray, a shiny robot that parks your car at Düsseldorf Airport in Germany. Ray makes sure you don’t have to park miles away from the terminal, eliminating the hassle of finding a parking place. Just drop off your car within a few meters from the check-in area [...]. When you come back from a holiday or business trip, the robot will make sure your car is ready to go when you walk out of the airport.

Danish parking garage invites to stay and play

2014-08-07T14:18:00-04:00

A new parking garage in Nordhavn, Denmark by JAJA Architects will combine form, functionality, and fun. Draped in greenery and topped with a public playground, the aptly named Park and Play reimagines a garage as an active social space rather than simply a storage place for cars. [...] The garage is being built as part of the first phase of Nordhavn’s almost 500-acre master plan to be developed over the next 40 to 50 years.

One Woman's Quest to Design Parking Lots People Don't Hate

2014-08-05T14:15:00-04:00

This automated garage is ideal for dense urban areas, says Yoka, vice president of program development at the International Parking Institute, based in Alexandria, Virginia. A Philadelphia-area native and self-described "super parking nerd," her niche is sustainable parking, something that many people, upon first hearing the phrase, assume is a contradiction. But for a building designed to house cars, says Yoka, The Lift at Juniper Street is surprisingly green.

Enlightenment About Parking: Q&A with Architect Darius Sollohub

2014-04-29T14:30:00-04:00

We might ask ourselves the question, why is it that so many communities want to disguise the utilitarian cell phone tower as a fake tree? They fool no one and actually call more attention to them. Or why are there hundreds of parking structures that have false façades that make people initially think they are foreclosed buildings with all the windows broken? There seems to be much cultural confusion about the beauty of the utilitarian.

When a Parking Lot Is So Much More

2012-03-26T12:05:00-04:00

We need to redefine what we mean by “parking lot” to include something that not only allows a driver to park his car, but also offers a variety of other public uses, mitigates its effect on the environment and gives greater consideration to aesthetics and architectural context.

Parking spaces

2011-07-20T01:17:04-04:00

Simon Henley's new book, The Architecture of Parking (Thames & Hudson), casts an objective eye over car parks, one of the most important but most neglected building types of the modern era, and finds a strange and haunting beauty.

'Using formal expression to overcome any shortfall in the quality of construction' ... The Tricorn Centre, Portsmouth, (above) designed by The Owen Luder Partnership.