Archinect - News

The latest trend in luxury real estate? Bespoke automated parking

2019-09-23T12:59:00-04:00

“[Parking is] sort of becoming an expected amenity for a high-end condo,” said Andrew Bradfield, a principal of Orange Management, a developer that has installed automated garages in two Brooklyn condos: Waverly Brooklyn in Clinton Hill and the Symon in Downtown Brooklyn. “To not have parking hampers marketing.”

Despite having one of the best public transportation systems in the world, New York City's developers have taken to embracing bespoke and automated parking options as luxury building amenities in recent years. The spots can cost upwards of $200,000 per stall to rent, depending on the development.

The New York Times reports that Renzo Piano Building Workshop's 565 Broome SoHo, BIG's XI residences, and Robert A.M. Stern's 70 Vestry are among many recent Manhattan condo projects that offer "hefty amounts of accessory parking."

Visualizing L.A. County's bad urban planning decisions

2019-08-27T19:00:00-04:00

Like most American cities, Los Angeles has too much parking. Way too much parking.

In a recent online essay titled No Parking Here, designer and illustrator Josh Vredevoogd takes a researched look into the failed urban planning ethos that underpins Los Angeles County's massive sea of parking stalls.

According to Vredevoogd's research, Los Angeles County is currently home to 18.6 million parking spaces, a number that eclipses the county's population (10.2 million residents). If collected into a single parcel, the gargantuan parking lot would span 110,000 acres of asphalt, or, an area roughly 7.5 times the size of Manhattan. If populated at Manhattan's density, Vredevoogd agrues, that sizable lot could host a population of 12 million residents.

The illustrative example highlights a central issue for Los Angeles's urbanism: the area's parking minimums fuel many of the region's deeply entrenched social problems, including the housing affordability crisis, the homelessness crisis, and...

So-called "parking podiums" are aesthetically ruining downtown Los Angeles

2017-04-18T13:58:00-04:00

As L.A. pats itself on the back for its freshly angular skyline, a new architectural trend — enabled by another city ordinance — threatens to turn the beating heart of modern Los Angeles into a cold, lifeless and unwalkable place.

This excellent piece by the aptly named Steven Sharp delves into the uglification of downtown Los Angeles via the "parking podium," wherein large buildings dedicate their first few floors to a parking garage to meet code requirements for parking, thereby plunging the pedestrian realm back into an unwelcome "City of Quartz" vibe. Putting the parking in the first few floors is cheaper than digging underground or creating surface lots, but honestly: ugh!