RSS
 

Posts Tagged ‘Parking’

Long Term Angle Parking: 12 Cool Cadillac Ranch Copies

01 Feb

[ By Steve in Art & Installation & Sound. ]

cadillac_ranch_5a
The legendary Cadillac Ranch can’t be beat but it CAN be copied! These 12 tinny tributes to Amarillo’s angled auto art shift flattery into high gear.

cadillac_ranch_5b

cadillac_ranch_5c

Cadillacs may be iconic symbols of those Fabulous Fifties but by the time the Space Age was in full flight, pop culture had ditched finned land barges in favor of “lowly” but well-loved VW Beetles. A half-century later, classic Bugs are a rare sight on America’s roads though you’ll find plenty at the Slug Bug Ranch in Conway, Texas! Kudos to Flickr users Jenny McG (thedefiningmoment), Kent Kanouse (Snap Man) and The Atomic Kid 1959 for bringing out the best in the Bug Ranch’s buried but be-dazzled Beetles!

Truckhenge, Boathenge, Bushenge…

cadillac_ranch_6c

cadillac_ranch_6a

Lumping Ron Lessman’s varied automotive artworks into a “truckhenge” is rather all-inclusive – the Shawnee County, Kansas denizen has deployed a host of land and water craft in several distinct henges.

cadillac_ranch_6b

cadillac_ranch_6d

According to The Vagabond Glovers’ Meanderings, “Shawnee County health and zoning officials got after him to clean up his yard, and when they told him to pick up his trucks, he decided to take their orders literally, and pick them up, then plant them back down in the ground the way he saw it done in Texas at Cadillac Ranch.” That’s tellin’ ’em, Ron!

Small Wonders

cadillac_ranches_1a

Old and busted: car smashups. New hotness: Toy Mashups, which just happens to be where photographers Josh Cornish and Kyle Hillery snapped the above installation and its inspiration in May of 2012. Unlike the original Cadillac Ranch created by art collective Ant Farm (Chip Lord, Hudson Marquez and Doug Michels) and eclectic landowner Stanley Marsh 3 back in 1974, no backhoes were required to set the miniatures in place. Well, maybe a teeny tiny toy backhoe.

cadillac_ranch_1b

cadillac_ranch_1c

Nice that both Miniatur Wunderland (c/o Knitrageous) in Hamburg, Germany and Un Petit Monde saw fit to apply graffiti to their scaled-down Cadillac Ranch tributes. It’s doubtful visitors to these installations will be allowed to personalize them, though.

Lying Solo

cadillac_ranch_3

Wow, Christine has really let herself go! Actually this is/was a 1960 Plymouth Fury while King’s krazed killer kar was a ’58 model. We’re not certain whether the vehicle’s owner had Cadillac Ranch in mind when he tilted this seemingly sharp Oldie But Goodie into its diagonal semi-grave but the finned beauty sure could use some company.

Next Page – Click Below to Read More:
Long Term Angle Parking 12 Cool Cadillac Ranch Copies

Share on Facebook





[ By Steve in Art & Installation & Sound. ]

[ WebUrbanist | Archives | Galleries | Privacy | TOS ]


WebUrbanist

 
Comments Off on Long Term Angle Parking: 12 Cool Cadillac Ranch Copies

Posted in Creativity

 

Light House: Translucent Dwellings in an Abandoned Parking Garage

24 Oct

[ By Steph in Architecture & Houses & Residential. ]

light house 1

With their cavernous abandoned spaces, the hundreds of stalled skyscraper projects throughout tropical Asia could serve a purpose by hosting low-budget micro-dwellings aimed at ‘urban nomads.’ Economic conditions put many high-rise building projects on hold, while the global housing crisis is making it difficult to impossible for young people, the middle class and the urban poor to find affordable accommodations in desirable cities. A project called ‘Light House’ offers a temporary solution.

light house 5

light house 4

Designed especially for mild climates, these prototype housing units consist of perforated metal grid frames, plastic-laminated plywood floors and walls made of layered textiles. “The different degrees of perforation of the walls give variation to the space within by selective filtering of external elements,” say the creators, Bangkok design firm All(zone). There are shelves for personal items, a changing room with a closet, and a bed surrounded by mosquito net.

light house 2

light house 3

light house 10

Each one costs $ 1,200 to make and can be quickly assembled and disassembled, taken to a new location when the current ‘host’ is no longer available. The designers themselves lived in the prototype units to test them out. But would the average young city resident really want to live in a space like this?

light house 6

light house 7

The need for affordable housing, adaptability and reclaiming vacant urban spaces is undeniable, but flimsy structures like these seem like just one shaky step above homelessness, and might be better suited to serving that population instead. The transparency of the walls could be seen as a statement on what it’s like to live in the streets, perhaps making an even more profound statement on the housing crisis than the creators intended.

Share on Facebook





[ By Steph in Architecture & Houses & Residential. ]

[ WebUrbanist | Archives | Galleries | Privacy | TOS ]


WebUrbanist

 
Comments Off on Light House: Translucent Dwellings in an Abandoned Parking Garage

Posted in Creativity

 

Invisible Bicycles: Tokyo’s High-Tech Underground Bike Parking

26 Mar

[ By WebUrbanist in Technology & Vehicles & Mods. ]

undergound bike copy

Sufficiently advanced science has been said to look like magic, like this subterranean cycle storage system – except in this case images and videos give you a peak at the secret workings below the surface.

amazing bike parking

On the space-starved streets of Tokyo, every bit of spare square footage counts, making the city’s investment in this complex-seeming solution a sensible way to tackle bike storage and theft.

underground bike storage system

underground bike parking system

Users simply walk their bike up, input a card or code, and let the machinery do the rest. The bikes are then taken underground, sorted and stored in a cylindrical shaft until needed, then available at a moment’s notice – bikers can be back on their rides faster than a valet at a fancy hotel could bring a car around.

underground car park variant

The Eco Cycle Anti-Seismic Underground Bicycle Park was designed and built by the engineers of Giken Seisakusho and can store up to 800 bicycles at a time. Its creators have also developed similar system designs that would work the same way but with cars.

underground japanese bicycle park

underground cycle storage solution

The real wonder is not that it already exists in Japan, however, but that it has not been imported to other countries. There could be issues with water tables in certain cities, but the solution could also potentially be adapted to spaces like abandoned subway stations that already exist in others.

Share on Facebook





[ By WebUrbanist in Technology & Vehicles & Mods. ]

[ WebUrbanist | Archives | Galleries | Privacy | TOS ]


WebUrbanist

 
Comments Off on Invisible Bicycles: Tokyo’s High-Tech Underground Bike Parking

Posted in Creativity

 

Guerrilla Signage: Designer Fixes Street Parking Sign Stacks

05 Nov

[ By WebUrbanist in Design & Guerilla Ads & Marketing. ]

signage evolution deciphering

Anyone who has parked in a major metropolitan area has seen something like this: a vertical array of signs that provide a confusing (sometimes even self-contradictory) instructions about when you can park based on time of day or year, type of permit and other conditions.

crazy sign stack

sign hack test run

Nikki Sylianteng, having gotten one too many parking tickets, decided to do something about the problem, developing, refining and ultimately deploying a solution on the streets to get actual feedback.

signage process analysis

parking schedule test

Titled To Park or Not to Park, this ongoing project started as an independent and informal attempt to see if there were better options out there but has since progressed to a council motion in Los Angeles to test such signs in a more official capacity.

street sign test copies

street sign send out

For additional feedback, Nikki has sent copies of the modified signage to people in other parts of California and Minnesota to see how they fare in different cities and settings.

sign schedule progression

signage section process

Combining various signs into one, the time is presented along the y-axis and the date on the x-axis. Green bars indicate acceptable times to park and red bars are used to indicate otherwise. Sometimes additional complexity needs to be addressed when permits come into play or the school year is factored in the mix (not always corresponding just to days of the week).

sign stack analysis

From the project’s creator: “My strategy was to visualize the blocks of time when parking is allowed and not allowed. Everything else was kept the same, the colors, the form. My intention was to show how a small but thoughtful change can make a big difference by save drivers a lot of time, stress, and money. I tried to stay mindful of the constraints that a large organization like the Department of Transportation might face for this seemingly small change.”

Share on Facebook





[ By WebUrbanist in Design & Guerilla Ads & Marketing. ]

[ WebUrbanist | Archives | Galleries | Privacy | TOS ]


WebUrbanist

 
Comments Off on Guerrilla Signage: Designer Fixes Street Parking Sign Stacks

Posted in Creativity

 

Park(ing) Day 2014: Citizens Reclaim the Streets for Fun

25 Sep

[ By Steph in Destinations & Sights & Travel. ]

Parking Day Dallas 4

On September 19th, 2014, residents of cities around the world rushed into the streets to reclaim what is rightfully theirs, taking urban spaces back for their own enjoyment. Well, sort of. Park(ing) Day is an annual event that encourages temporarily converting public parking spaces into parks, playgrounds, venues and other recreational spaces, and it’s usually officially sanctioned by the cities in which it’s held. Here’s how a dozen cities around the world celebrated, from Quito, Ecuador to Dublin, Ireland.

Sydney, Australia
Parking Day Sydney 1

Parking Day Sydney 2.jp

Oversized benches double as chalkboards in Sydney, along with more conventional park setups.

Paris, France
Parking Day France 1

Parking Day France 2

In the cities of Paris and Nancy, France, Park(ing) Day participants played video games in makeshift living rooms, displayed their art, and created iconic Parisian cafes (in the street rather than the sidewalk.)

Dublin, Ireland
Parking Day Dublin 1

Parking Day Dublin 2

Literal garden beds, gay pride displays and a beautiful turf-covered sculptural bench made appearances in Dublin.

Montreal, Canada
Parking Day Montreal 2

Parking Day Montreal 1

Parking Day Montreal 3

Puppet show or game of croquet, anyone?

Next Page – Click Below to Read More:
Parking Day 2014 Citizens Reclaim The Streets For Fun

Share on Facebook





[ By Steph in Destinations & Sights & Travel. ]

[ WebUrbanist | Archives | Galleries | Privacy | TOS ]


WebUrbanist

 
Comments Off on Park(ing) Day 2014: Citizens Reclaim the Streets for Fun

Posted in Creativity

 

Occupy Parking Spots: 15 Projects Reclaiming the Streets

18 Sep

[ By Steph in Art & Installation & Sound. ]

Parking Spot Hacks Bikes 3
In the asphalt-covered space that would normally be occupied by a single vehicle could be a bike rack, a dance floor, an outdoor cafe, a kiddie pool or a beautifully landscaped public park. Sometimes guerrilla and sometimes officially city-sanctioned, these 15 projects occupy urban parking spots for uses that are undoubtedly a lot more fun.

Bike Parking = Superior Efficiency

Parking Spot Hacks Bike 2

Ten bicycles can easily fit within a single parking spot, and many cities have started to take advantage of this fact with specially-sized bike racks. Buenos Aires installed a few car-shaped racks in parking spots throughout the city, an idea that caught the attention of Washington DC’s transit authority, and San Francisco’s 40th street parklet (seen top) was created by adjacent business Manifesto & Subrosa. They’re also occasionally unsanctioned, with citizens taking it upon themselves to occupy a spot with bikes for a day.

Car-Shaped Tents for Urban Camping
Parking Spot Hacks Car Shaped Tent

Designer Michael Rakowitz created a car-shaped tent made just for parking spaces, making it possible to camp in urban locations while (kind of) blending in. A similar tent used a car-shaped frame and a standard car cover for an even more convincing effect, offering affordable housing virtually anywhere in the city.

Sao Paulo’s Permanent Parklets
Parking Spot Hacks Sao Paulo 2

Parking Spot Hacks Sao Paulo 1

The city of Sao Paulo, Brazil has some of the world’s prettiest and most colorful parklets, which are parking spots transformed into mini public parks. While many parklets are temporary, this one is permanent, with the spot fully paved and heavy-duty urban furniture in a bright shade of red.

Noriega Street Parklet, San Francisco
Parking Spot Hacks Noriega 2

Parking Spot Hacks Noriega 1

Diagonal wooden benches with built-in greenery take up three parking spots in San Francisco in this design by Matarozzi Pelsinger Design + Build. The seating was designed around the awkward shape of the available space, and the rule that it had to be at least three feet away from adjacent parking spots. Says the firm, “The acute corners are embraced as areas for planting and “chaise lounge” seating, where tight plan geometry becomes an excuse to put your feet up.”

Next Page – Click Below to Read More:
Occupy Parking Spots 15 Projects Reclaiming The Streets

Share on Facebook





[ By Steph in Art & Installation & Sound. ]

[ WebUrbanist | Archives | Galleries | Privacy | TOS ]


WebUrbanist

 
Comments Off on Occupy Parking Spots: 15 Projects Reclaiming the Streets

Posted in Creativity

 

SCADpads: Parking Garage Turned Tiny House Village

22 Jul

[ By Steph in Architecture & Cities & Urbanism. ]

SCADpads tiny house village 1

Just how livable can a 135-square-foot micro-house really be? That’s what an interdisciplinary group of students, faculty and alumni at Savannah College of Art and Design set out to learn with ‘SCADpad,’ an experiment that has turned a parking garage into a village of tiny houses.

SCADpads tiny house village 2

SCADpads tiny house village 3

The larger question that the team wanted to answer was, how can design change the world? SCADpad is an example of transforming an uninhabitable space into sustainable and efficient housing using the millions of parking spaces in the United States that are typically vacant at any given time.

SCADpads tiny house village 4

SCADpads tiny house village 5

SCADpads tiny house village 6

Each of the three SCADpad units has its own theme and visual identity reflecting the college’s global footprint, with a common green space fostering a sense of community. It took 10 months to design and develop the project, from its architectural footprint down to the remote home controls.

SCADpads tiny house village 7

SCADpads tiny house village 8

Artists from SCAD helped design and decorate the interiors, including large-scale paintings, making these tiny houses visually dazzling, but it’s clear that they’re pretty practical, as well.

SCADpads tiny house village 9

SCADpads tiny house village 10

Students, faculty and special guests lived in the SCADpads from April through June of 2014, documenting the experience on Instagram.

Share on Facebook





[ By Steph in Architecture & Cities & Urbanism. ]

[ WebUrbanist | Archives | Galleries | Privacy | TOS ]


WebUrbanist

 
Comments Off on SCADpads: Parking Garage Turned Tiny House Village

Posted in Creativity

 

Permanent Parklets: São Paulo Turns Street Parking to Parks

16 Jul

[ By WebUrbanist in Architecture & Cities & Urbanism. ]

parklet drawing design detail

In a bold bid to change its urban landscape for good, Brazil’s biggest city has given a green light to citizen proposals to transform car parking spots into perpetual park spaces.

sao paulo permanent parklet

sao paulo mini park

Cities around the world have sanctioned micro-parks on a limited basis (often for temporary use during environmental days and green festivals), but this legislation makes the provision a permanent mandate for São Paulo.

parklet simple axon drawing

parklet construction guide diagrams

sao paulo tiny parks

The law comes with style and usage guides but a broad mandate, allowing for a potentially huge variety of programmatic functions starting with but not limited to open seating and leisure space.

 

parklet multi use spaces

sao paulo parklet example

Other possibilities include: small commercial vendors under tents or in shipping containers, public pools and restrooms, recycling receptacle centers and bike sharing racks. The argument, in part, is that the public gains a great deal of additional benefit from open space, which can be shared, over parking spaces that are used only by a few individuals at a time (and even then indirectly).

parklet space infographic images

Suzi Bolognese of SB Design Studio summarizes the shift: “The parklets programme fits in perfectly with São Paulo’s attempts to promote a friendlier pedestrian environment, and involves replacing a parking space or two with a new public area. Parklets can incorporate benches, chairs, tables, trees, and bike racks for the public to use and enjoy. São Paulo has loved parklets so much it has integrated them into city planning policy. Now as a result of Decree No. 55,405, São Paulo has rules for the creation and maintenance of parklets, the first Latin American public policy on the issue.”

Share on Facebook





[ By WebUrbanist in Architecture & Cities & Urbanism. ]

[ WebUrbanist | Archives | Galleries | Privacy | TOS ]


WebUrbanist

 
Comments Off on Permanent Parklets: São Paulo Turns Street Parking to Parks

Posted in Creativity

 

Baroque Parking Garage Challenges Blind Civic Historicism

04 Oct

[ By WebUrbanist in Architecture & Cities & Urbanism. ]

baroque car park entry

Challenged with designing something to fit a historic city-center context in “baroque, classic, neo-classical, romantic and neo-romantic style” is itself difficult if not paradoxical, but making that work for a multistory parking structure without devolving into kitsch seems nearly impossible.

baroque structure street level

Set in Skopje, Macedonia, the competition-winning solution by Milan Mijalkovic and  PPAG architects (images by Darko Hristov) is at once traditional in its aesthetic undertones and distinctively contemporary at the same time. It stems a careful study of cultural context and revisiting of architectural history in a place with a complex geographical and political past.

baroque car garage interior

From the designers (via ArchDaily): “The façade interprets the wish for a historicist appearance without explicitly using the traditional language of historicism. It adapts the baroque idea of creating reality by the means of illusive perspective. Baroque artworks expand into the real space as well as vice versa the reality merges into the illusive perspective of the artwork.”

baroque building modern detail

The finished product is thus neither faux-historical nor fully modern – it is interpretive yet highly original, playing on baroque themes without looking like a poor attempt to mimic past styles.

baroque panel system patterns

The pattern itself was derived from a single photograph of period residential architecture, distorted through a series of iterations rendering it intentionally unrecognizable.

baroque parking garage facade

Beyond the aesthetic accomplishment, there is a pragmatic balance of form and function in the project. The underlying garage is utilitarian while the overlapping exterior panel system provides shade and visual relief at various scales.

baroque natural context image

More from the architects on the origins of this bold approach: “Almost twenty years after the dissolution of Yugoslavia, this project is reinventing and re-affirmating Macedonia´s separable, undeniable and glorified national identity through urbanism and architecture. Macedonian culture is celebrated by a large number of memorials, religious symbols and new public buildings which are mostly designed in a historicist style. Neo-baroque is the favorite one, with its connotation of power and impact on the masses. The extensive use of these styles is supposed to establish Skopje as the European, Christian, bourgeois city that it has never really been – and to deny its oriental, Islamic as well as it socialist, modern past.”

Share on Facebook



[ By WebUrbanist in Architecture & Cities & Urbanism. ]

[ WebUrbanist | Archives | Galleries | Privacy | TOS ]


    




WebUrbanist

 
Comments Off on Baroque Parking Garage Challenges Blind Civic Historicism

Posted in Creativity

 

Car Parks or Works of Art: 14 Exemplary Parking Facilities

28 Aug

[ By Steph in Architecture & Public & Institutional. ]

Parking Architecture Main

Most parking facilities are eyesores, designed with function in mind without paying heed to context or aesthetics. But in some cases, parking garages can be so innovative, high-tech, bright and – yes – even beautiful, that they’re notable works of architecture in and of themselves.

Detroit’s Michigan Theater

Parking Lots Detroit Theater

Parking Lots Detroit Theater 2

Built in 1926 alongside the connected 13-story Michigan Building office tower, the 4,000-seat Michigan Theater was once the jewel of Detroit, described as the world’s finest theater. But by the mid-1960s, it closed, partially due to a lack of parking – ironic, given its ultimate usage. The theater has continued to decay, but its beautiful shell remains intact as a three-level, 160-space parking deck.

72DP, Sydney

Parking Architecture 72DP

An extensive, colorful geometric mural decorates an underground car park in Sydney, Australia by architects Marsh Cashman Koolloos (MCK.) “The objective of the project was to breathe new life into the space which, having been rendered in concrete with little inlet of natural light, felt quite dark and heavy. Working closely with the owners, who possess a keen design sensibility, it was decided that the mural would cover all surfaces in a blanket of bright color. There was also a request that the larger wall surfaces be left blank with an eye towards potentially introducing additional, individually commissioned works at a future date. nevertheless it was vital that the installation feel and function as a complete work in its own right.”

Parkhaus Engelenschanze, Stuttgart, Germany

Parking Architecture Parkhaus

This light-filled parking garage totally gets rid of that creepy enclosed feeling that many of these structures can foster. The Parkhaus Engelenschanze features an all-glass exterior, and its inner courtyard even has a waterfall, a creek and curtains made of reclaimed glass.

The VW Tower, Wolfsburg, Germany

Parking Architecture VW Tower

Two towering silos are used to store vehicles at Volkswagen’s production facility and Autostadt visitor attraction in Germany. Reaching 48 meters (157 feet) into the air, the towers contain up to eight hundred cars lifted into position by rotating mechanical arms.

Ballet Valet, Miami

Parking Architecture Ballet Valet

You might not expect a parking garage to be among a city’s most impressive architecture, but in Miami’s case, the Ballet Valet really does stand out. Completed in 1996 by Arquitectona, the garage in Miami’s Art Deco district  is covered in grid-patterned fiberglass that serves as a terrace for climbing greenery. The garage sparked a trend in the city for well-designed parking facilities.

Next Page:
Car Parks Or Works Of Art 14 Exemplary Parking Facilities

Share on Facebook



[ By Steph in Architecture & Public & Institutional. ]

[ WebUrbanist | Archives | Galleries | Privacy | TOS ]


    




WebUrbanist

 
Comments Off on Car Parks or Works of Art: 14 Exemplary Parking Facilities

Posted in Creativity