September 23, 2016 - General

Auto Erotica: 10 Incredible Parking Garage Designs

Autostadt Automated Parking Garage Towers

The Autostadt CarTowers in Wolfsburg, Germany look to be the work of science fiction.  In this pair of giant garages, cars are lifted and placed into a 20-story matrix by swift robotic ushers.  You won’t find pedestrians in this garage, only new Volkswagen cars produced at the company’s headquarters.  If you’re lucky to visit Autostadt, you can take a ride in these towers upon the robotic arms yourself in a safe glass cube.  Whatever you do, just don’t look down…

Autostadt Towers Gallery

1111 Lincoln Road by Herzog de Meuron

Quite possibly the world’s most beautiful parking garage, this amazing structure in Miami, Florida is also one of the world’s newest.  The 1111 Lincoln Road parking garage was completed in 2010 by Herzog & de Meuron Architekten, a progressive Swiss architecture firm.  1111 Licoln Road’s design features a series of parking slats varied by height, connected by angular concrete beams.  The garage is also home to shops on the bottom level and an office at its peak.  In a city so diverse in its architectural identity, 1111 Lincoln Road is a welcome addition.  The photos here were captured by Nelson Garrido, a friend of TheCoolist.

1111 Lincoln Road Gallery

GALLERY

Few multi-storey car parks are cultural assets, but these 10 examples of modernist architecture show there are occasions when architects excel themselves and create landmarks a city can be proud of.

Eric Kuhne, who designed the award-winning car park at Bluewater shopping centre, just outside London , said there was no excuse for drab parking lots, which he described as “insidious”.

The car park at Dutchess Mall in Fishkill, New York, is largely unused

At Blue water there are two trees for every three cars and we chose trees which give a blindingly white blossom in the spring and iridescent leaves in the fall. The car parks become a sea of color.

Too often parking lot design is perfunctory and ignominious when it could restore pageantry to our great cities.

They should perhaps be designed in such a way that they “honour the heroic routine” of driving, working and shopping.

Using new technology

When the automobile was first invented they were parked by the curb. Similar to the horses and wagons they would eventually replace.

The world’s first parking lot

• It is believed to have been built in 1917. Located in Los Angeles by a young Italian immigrant, Andrew Pansini.
• The following year the La Salle Hotel in Chicago built the first parking garage on multiple levels.
• Over the years there have been a number of developments – underground car parks, pay and display machines and most recently the advent of paying by mobile phone.
• The first automated car parks were developed in the US in the 1920s.
• But robotic car parks really took off in Japan in the 1970’s. Especially in Tokyo which suffers from an acute shortage of land. They needed to maximize the number of cars which could be stored at any one time.
• The Cube, an office and apartment development in Birmingham, opened in 2010. It has installed an automated parking system which allows cars to “park themselves”.
• The robotics system seems expensive but in contrast allows for more cars to be crammed in.
• New technology being used solves the problem of driving around looking for a parking space.
• A British company has invented a system of smart sensors. These are be installed in car parks. This will enable the operators to know how many spaces they had and which times of day were most popular.
• There is a newly-developed an app. This application program allows the motorist to find out where the nearest parking spaces were.

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