Here are some of the world’s most interesting, innovative and just plain bizarre parking garage.
(July 2010) Parking garages are often architectural afterthoughts. Monolithic and utilitarian, they rarely offer more than the necessary housing of cars for other more aesthetic structures. “It’s an expense a developer generally doesn’t like, but it is a necessary evil to make his development successful,” says Len Tsupros, president of Carl Walker Construction, a design firm that specializes in parking garages. However, as cities become larger and as transportation technology changes, the role and function of the parking garage has to be redefined. Here are some of the world’s most interesting, innovative and just plain bizarre parking garages.)
Robotic Parking Garage
Location: Dubai, United Arab Emirates Background:
Dubai, a city that boasts a chain of private man-made islands arranged in the shape of the globe, is likewise extravagant and innovative with its parking structures. This is currently the world’s largest robotic parking garage and can handle 250 cars per hour
Why It’s Unique:
From the outside it looks like a single-car garage, but hidden inside is a 765-vehicle storage facility. The robotic automation ensures that the cars are parked as efficiently as possible. The automation makes it easy on the driver and saves space, but it requires a lot of capital from the developer, Tsupros says.
photo credit: Robotic Parking/The National