something compact...

The parking garage next to the IBM building in Chicago is one of my favorite buildings in Chicago. I can't find a pic of it though. Designed by an IIT prof & Mies fan.

Temple Street Garage in New Haven by Rudolph.

There is a simple one that I like in Houston. I think SOM did it when it had an office in Houston (c. 1970s). It has colored corrugated metal as screens on a pretty standard garage. It fronts Main Street in the Medical Center.

Are you just looking for aesthetic or innovative layout/design?

WOLF ARCHITECTURE HAS SWEET PARKING


Sahar or other houstonites, what about the one over in the village next to the big bally's fitness. The one with the cool beams with circular subtractions (I forget what these are called)

there's one in the new Metropolis by some Italian architects.

Here are some good Wolf Architecture links and pictures.

UCSB Parking Structure. This is not yet built, but one of the best designs for parking I've yet seen. A circular lot in which the exterior is clad in faceted polycarbonate panels. At day a light shape with soft visual boundaries. At night, the motion and headlights of the cars activate the facade and reveal it's contents. Bottle of Fireflies? I love it





could be the best parking garage I've ever seen.

Also, the disney parking garage has some nice moments, but is not as holistic or artistic in it's execution.

MiesRice: That project looks pretty cool, as does the Disney one. What's going on there is pretty realistic, in terms of infilling a concrete structure with what looks like custom louvers that reduce visibility into the garage and - in a northern climate - would help block snow from coming in.

Sahar: This search is more for aesthetic, since the urban site I'm dealing with dictates basically one type of system.

eric moss has a nice pkg garage project...
in- where else- culver city....

then those dutch ones too..............

jean nouvels garage on princetons campus. i think it was him . . . very simple, beautiful mesh fabric.

visit http://www.ltlwork.net/ find "Park Tower" under the "speculations" section

Wow, architecture orgasm there.

I wonder what program they used for the renderings?

I must say though, the glass wall that warps to connect with the concrete tubes is a spectacular notion.

Ok, I'll drop some dutch projects.


Wiel Arets: Hoge Heren, Rotterdam


OMA: Chassé Breda parking


UN Studio: Arnhem Centraalstation

Or Zaha Hadid's train terminal/car park in Strasbourg?

The picture of Wiel Arets Hoge Heren doesn't do justice to the parking section.

There is a stone pattern screened onto the glass panels that enclose the parking area. During the daylight hours, these panels almost match the surrounding masonry, except for the spooky green light tubes which show through.

He's used almost the same technique at his new library at Utrecht, except the screened glass carries the same repeating foliage image that wraps the whole library. The lights bleed through the same way.

Simple and elegant.

I've just uploaded some pix of parking in Netherlands to the image gallery. Arets, UN Studio, and MVRDV. Should show up in a bit.

UN studios one wins hands down-
I went to a lecture of theirs and they had a photograph of it being used for a fashion shoot-
enough said

Koolhass' garage at the Eurolille terminal is pretty cool. Each level has a different lighting scheme (color) and the floor is made out of some sort of rubber material which creates this weird sound of tires screeching from all directions...

Cool! I knew there was some cool stuff out there.

wow, some good shit here!

MiesvanderRice,

LTL used to render their drawings by hand. I am not sure if they still do, but I really like the aesthetic. I am glad there are people out there who can still produce interesting things without the technology.

A system to mix park with parking...
parkgarage

brian healy clad an existing garage in an interesting skin...
http://archrecord.construction.com/features/bwarAwards/archives/01lincoln.asp

texas tech has a spanish renaissance parking structure right across from the architecture building. absofuckinglutely ridiculous.

scoggin elam did a parking facility at wellesly college in massachusettes that was really pretty cool. it is clad in copper pipe (lots of it)

http://www.msmearch.com/academic/wellesley.html

The Feb 2001 issue of Architecture (before it got lame) was devoted to parking garages -- there are 7 examples, by 4 firms (Brian Healy, HLKB, Murphy/Jahn, and Harry Wolf).

Also, the German firm von Gerkan, Marg + Partners did a few, though I'm not sure if they're published anywhere besides their own monograph.

And another one, it was a dual project with a movie theater just across the street, a (rather large) parking garage atop a supermarket (if I remember correctly it was erected on the edge of a college campus). It was featured in either Architecture or Arch Record in the past few years, perhaps it's one of the ones mentioned above? Or somebody knows it?

no time to look it up now, but there's a great one in South Beach, Miami, that's artfully covered in plants.

NL Architects' Car Park project (unbuit) for Amsterdam, another unbuilt one by Jose Lluis Mateo along the hiway in Spain, Santa Monica Place (early Gehry), various megastructure/mat parking/buildings by Kevin Roche, and the base of the "corn cob" towers in Chicago are all quite cool...