July/August 2010 Parking - 54

Eric Staudenmaier Photography

Eric Staudenmaier Photography Koning Eizenberg

was seen at the beginning of the 20th century can re-emerge. Why do we need to park directly at our destination when we could combine the low-tech of having our goods brought to our home by a car jockey with the high-tech of cell phone delivery on demand? Or the opposite, completely high-tech approach of our car being parked on the 27th floor right outside of our condo, such as the projects now appearing in Berlin and New York. (http://carloft.de/v0/htdocs/index.php) The future visions of automobiles brought right through and into our living and work spaces was first designed and built in Budapest in the late 1920s. The automobile entered right into the seven-story glass ceiling center of the hotel/retail full block complex and promenaded on ramps that moved up and around the space to your parking space next to your room. The building codes in the United States at this time would not have allowed this solution. We are seeing ideas like this appear again as the car is no longer powered by gasoline. A paradigm change in transportation movement systems and parking strategies is occurring. We need to design for the possibilities for more compact livable communities to be embraced. This paradigm change will allow for sustainable energy linkages, closer, smaller parking, creating walkablity and better integrated and more attractive parking solutions. Hightech supporting low-tech solutions is the path for the future. 
Shannon Sanders McDonald, AIA, is the author of The Parking Garage: Design and Evolution of a Modern Urban Form, published by the Urban Land Institute in 2007. The book was the inspiration for House of Cars: Innovation and the Parking Garage, an exhibition currently underway at the National Building Museum in Washington, D.C. NPA is the presenting sponsor. McDonald can be reached at S1027arch@aol.com.

A paradigm change in transportation movement systems and parking strategies is occurring.
Santa Monica, is one of the most successful examples providing parking access directly to each unit in the building while designing an attractive street façade. Automated parking can be cost competitive and provide gathering spaces for the community at the drop-off and pick-up area, while also providing the most compressed dense parking that exists. This type of facility also eliminates the need to create safe walking places for the pedestrian. A critical balance between high-tech solutions, machine movement patterns, the built environment and the pedestrian/bicyclist can occur, creating new land use patterns if we allow ourselves the freedom to expand the possibilities not narrow them. High-tech solutions can bring new meaning to the word ‘parking facility’. The neighborhood parking facility that

National Parking Association PARKING July/August 2010

July/August 2010 Parking

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of July/August 2010 Parking