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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.
— The Age
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... View full entry
Fresh off the firm’s debut public housing effort in Beijing, MAD Architects has unveiled project renders for a commercial complex at the edge of Milan’s Innovation District called MoLo (short for Mobility and Logistics Hub). According to the firm, the new hub will serve as a “monumental... View full entry
In recent years, thanks to advances in material specification, graphic appliqué, and building technologies, large, anonymous buildings around the country have been converted into canvases for designers and artists through new experiments in facade design. Oakland-based architecture practice... View full entry
“[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.” — The New York Times
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... View full entry
Even today, parking garages are typically underused. In the not-too-distant future, car shares, self-driving cars, increased investment in transit, or simple behavioral change could all shift the amount of parking people think they need. And the U.S. also has far more parking than necessary–in Seattle, for example, there are five parking spaces for every resident. Architects and city planners are increasingly realizing that valuable city space could be put to better use than storing cars. — Fast Company
Parking garages run rampant, especially in Los Angeles. According to Gensler's co-CEO Andy Cohen there are 500 million parking spaces in the United States. “Think about all that real estate, all that attention to parking, that could be revitalized and reused for the future of our cities.”... View full entry
The infamous parking garage. These monumentally sized structures have plagued city infrastructures across the globe. As the automobile still remains the most popular choice of transportation, it's no question we have so many parking garages. Often described as monolithic and bulky many architects... View full entry
Groundbreaking research presents credible estimates of the total parking supply in several American cities, and it's not pretty. Parking spaces are everywhere, but for some reason the perception persists that there’s “not enough parking.” And so cities require parking in new buildings and lavishly subsidize parking garages, without ever measuring how much parking exists or how much it’s used. — usa.streetsblog.org
A new report from Eric Scharnhorst at the Research Institute for Housing America, an arm of the Mortgage Bankers Association, estimates the total parking supply in five US cities. Looking at satellite imagery and tax record data, Scharnhorst tallied on-street parking, surface parking, and... View full entry
The Obama Center design team has been reworking plans for a proposed controversial garage on a portion of the historic Midway Plaisance, across the street from where the presidential complex is to be built in Jackson Park. [...]
When I left off on this story in November, Tod Williams, one of the architects, said relocating the garage was under consideration, given the concerns of community groups for the historic publicly owned Midway property.
— Chicago Sun-Times
Curbed Chicago picks up the story where the Chicago Sun-Times left off and reports about some of the praise and criticism that was presented at a meeting the Obama Foundation had called on December 20 at its Hyde Park Headquarters. The hearing was led by the project's architects Tod Williams... View full entry
During extreme storms, it's common for city infrastructure — from roads to subways to parking garages — to flood.
Architects from Danish firm Third Nature want to build garages that can cope with future storms. They designed a garage that could automatically move up and down as its water reservoir fills with and empties floodwater.
— Business Insider
Third Nature's conceptual garage structure, Pop-Up, consists of an underground water reservoir, five parking levels, and a pedestrian space on top. Most of this 30,460-square-foot structure could exist underground on dry days. On wet days, the structure would automatically pop up using hydraulics... View full entry
The strategy reflects a consensus among some developers and planners that California’s vaunted car culture is inevitably going to run out of gas...[Andy] Cohen, co-chief executive of Gensler, predicts car ownership will peak around 2020 and then start to decline, with more Americans relying on some form of ride-sharing than their own vehicles by 2025. That means cars gradually would disappear from home garages, curbs and parking structures, freeing up acre upon acre of real estate for new uses. — Los Angeles Times
Some developers are already planning for a not-so-far-off future Los Angeles where more people primarily rely on ridesharing (including from autonomous vehicles) than driving their own car, particularly in the form of parking garages that can be redesigned for other uses like commercial spaces or... View full entry
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 Chronicle
Houston "Eighth Wonder of the World" previously in the Archinect news:ULI report says Houston Astrodome “can and should live on”Urban Land Institute issues recommendations for Houston's AstrodomeThe Astrodome: The World's Largest Indoor Garden?Can buildings be too young to save?Winners of the... View full entry
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. — wired.com
LMN Architects' proposed Seattle tower — potentially the tallest on the West Coast — previously in the Archinect news:Seattle's proposed 101-story 4/C Tower considered as too tall by the FAAProposed Seattle Tower, designed by LMN Architects, could become the West Coast's tallest View full entry
Joining Miami's proud tradition of statement-parking projects by the likes of Herzog & de Meuron and Gehry Partners, Faulders Studio has a new garage-facade design set for Miami's formerly industrial Wynwood Arts District. Faulders joined us on the podcast to talk about the potentials of... View full entry
Paraphrased by the Washington Post, architect Terence Riley puts Miami's parking garages at the literal forefront of local urbanism: "In a city where everyone drives, the parking garage is the foyer." After all, Riley's firm, K/R Architects, curated the design of one of the city's most flamboyant... View full entry
Frustrated by a succession of boring glass boxes, Mayor Marty Walsh has called for one more: adventurous architecture.
[...] the city tries to sell off a decrepit garage in Winthrop Square. Earlier this month, each of six development teams presented its ideas in an open house at Faneuil Hall. On Monday, the Boston Redevelopment Authority revealed each team’s bid for the garage.
— bostonglobe.com
Detailed presentations of the six final RFP responses can be found here.Related stories in the Archinect news:Boston Mayor Marty Walsh goes up against boring architectureRachel Slade dares to ask: "Why is Boston so ugly?"Art college professor suggests makeover for brutalist Boston City Hall View full entry
