Greener Parking from Plant Archtects
by Lloyd Alter, Toronto on 09.12.07
Why are parking lots so uniformly awful? Plant Architects questioned the usual surface lot-"typically bereft of aesthetic qualities – they just do their job and try not to get noticed. Sadly, they are also usually grey gaps in the neighbourhoods they sit in."
Their interventions include trees, of course, to provide spatial definition and temper the heat island effect; solar powered lighting, an irrigation channel located over a storm water retention system and permeable paving. Alternative vehicles would get optimized spaces under the shade of the trees.
A few spaces would be lost, but why do we permit ugly black holes in our urban fabric just to park cars?
before
The interventions include:
Green Walls – The decrepit chain link fences and highway guard rails will be replaced by “green walls” that will both enclose the lots and act as a buffer between the lots and their neighbours. In locations adjacent to commercial properties these walls can change profile and alignment to screen garbage areas or make enclosures for outdoor patios. The walls will consist of an internal framework that will support a wide variety of planting (geared to the orientation and light conditions) providing varying levels of transparency to ensure privacy for neighbours while allowing visibility for security.
Trees – Trees will be planted as part of the central (more diaphanous) Green Walls, providing shade and oxygen, and helping to create a sense of this being a contained space in the city. The tress would be set in larger planted areas, making smaller parking space on either side, which would be reserved for Smart Cars, and other altenative transportation.
Planting areas – New planted areas, containing low-maintenance native plants (e.g. grasses) will anchor the parking lines, potentially with new seating where space allows. These would be tied to the Pay-and-Display units as well.
Storm Water – The storm water from the site will be collected and held in linear drainage troughs that run down the centre of the lot. These will run towards holding pits at the ends of the lots, holding the water for use in irrigating the plants on the site. It should easily be possible to disconnect the lots from the storm sewer system, greatly reducing the load on an already overburdened system.
New Paving – The paved surfaces would be redone using porous asphalt with embedded aggregates to increase wear and reflectivity, both improving the aesthetic quality of the surface and reducing the heat retention of the asphalt, while tying into the stormwater management system.
Lighting – The site lighting would also be taken off-grid, with new light standards that are solar powered, and with full-cutoff heads, reducing uplighting and making a more intimate space on the ground.
Traffic Calming / Street Furniture – In locations where there are one-way streets that require traffic direction measures, new sculptural planting areas would be provided that house the traffic signage while adding something more to the street than another dead, dirt-filled precast concrete box. ::Plant Architects
Lloyd, unfortunately I think you've shot yourself in the foot before you even got started, saying "a few spaces would be lost..." Considering the realities of urban real estate, don't you think that is more than just a passing concern? I agree than parking lots are ugly, but I think they wouldnt be there at all if they weren't generating maximum profit for the owners. That being said, some of these approaches, like permeous paving, could be put to use with no loss of parking spots.
My reaction is the opposite of Indigo's: The best way to really green parking is to eliminate it and by so doing encourage a transition to better modes of transportation.
These measures for 'greening' parking spaces are common practice for students of Landscape Architecture around the world.
Well designed carparks can be beautiful, practical, and environmentally friendly, while offering a better pedestrian experience and increasing the value of the land they are situated on.
These should be common practice for all new or retrofitted carparks anywhere.
Making parking lots more "environmental" is an oxymoron. Off-street parking exists to support our society's insistence that each driver have his/her own car, resulting in a car 'population' that is many times too high for the driving that is _needed_. Wide, congested roads is one symptom; endless parking lots is its twin brother.
Architects are in denial that providing for parking with each building, or building unit, is a major design constraint, as well as causing the unit's cost to be much higher than should be necessary.
Donald Shoup (_The High Cost of Free Parking_) suggests that parking should be provided on land specifically zoned for it, not be ancilliary and therefore spread out. If it doesn't pay for itself, it won't be provided by the private market.
Cars cannot be accommodated anywhere in a building; they must be at ground level and have a wide paved path to the nearest streets. In large quantities, they need a whole hierarchy of access corridors. Parking dominates a building's exterior, especially its "relationsdhip" to the public realm.
Architects, consider how wonderful it would be to not have to worry about parking cars when designing buildings, even single-family houses?
With MASC (metered access to shared cars) replacing OPOCO (one-person, one-car orientation), there should be so little demand for parking that on-street parking -- which has a great number of advantages over off-street parking for both pedestrians and car occupants -- would be able to provide for all the parking that would be needed.
Chris Bradshaw
Ottawa