Ensemble and master plan
Shared parking
housing complexcampusmixed-use developmenthospitalshopping center
It is parking concentrated in one or a few places in the development and used by several activities at different times, instead of a fixed space next to each building.
What it solves
Because the office empties at night when housing or the restaurant needs the spaces most, fewer spaces are built for the same use. It frees the development’s ground for trees, courtyards and walkable streets, with less asphalt to heat the air and speed up runoff.
Today
Place the parking on the edge of the development, a short, shaded walk from each building. Calculate the spaces by adding up each use’s schedule and not each building’s separate minimums. Design it with flat floors and generous heights so it can change use.
Common mistake
Giving each building its own surface parking, which fills the development with asphalt that is empty half the day and pushes doors away from people.
Tomorrow
If car numbers fall, a well-designed parking structure can become workshops, housing or a market. Meanwhile its roof can give shade, generate energy and collect rainwater. Its ground floor can store bicycles and receive deliveries.
Fact For a parking structure to be able to become offices or housing, flat floors and clear heights of about 3 to 4.5 meters are recommended, compared with 3 meters or less in a typical garage.
Where it comes from
- 1First automobiles London, England, 1901
On Denman Street the oldest known multi-story parking garage opened, with seven levels for about 100 vehicles. - 2Vauban neighborhood Freiburg, Germany, since 1998
Residential streets were left free of parking. Car owners buy a space in the parking structures on the edge of the neighborhood, and most households live without a car.
Masters
- Louis Kahn Traffic study for Philadelphia, Philadelphia, United States, 1952
He proposed ringing the city center with large parking structures so cars would stay at the edge and the center would be for people. He teaches how to think of parking as a piece of the plan and not of each building.
Appears in the routes
See also
Also in Ensemble and master plan
Diagrams and texts by LDB Arquitectura. They are shared under the CC BY 4.0 license, which allows them to be used and adapted with credit to the source.