Parking & the city

Introduction
Cars are huge space consumers in the city.
We selected 3 projects that, each in a different context want to deal with this problem

1. Parkhouse/carstadt, Amsterdam
Final project TUD 1994-1995
Pieter Bannenberg & Kamiel Klaase
This project is like a manifest. It states that an integrated parking is the solution for the survival of
the individual car in the historic center. The cars that the building attracts are parked within the
structure bringing fundamentally together urban program and cars. It would become possible to
park at your front door or desk. Thanks to the integrated parking, the public space could be
relieved from parking pressure. The project is a 1 kilometer extension of a public road, where the
road is the roof of the infrastructure. The building is a loop that contains 35000m floor space for
different uses and 19000m of parking space..

2. 1111 ,Miami Beach, USA

completed in 2010
Herzog & De Meuron
A car park is a public facility, like a train station or an airport, where people change from one mode
of transportation to another. Herzog & de Meuron
Located on a shopping street, 1111 is a new place for people to leave their cars. The architects
decided not to create another parkingbuilding with a faade that hides the ugliness of what is being
stored inside. With double and even triple height of a regular parking ceiling the project wouldnt
have any real-estate logic being only a parking building. The unusual heights create spectacular
views which give the building a higher potential than other parking buildings.

3. Koog aan de Zaan, Zaanstad

completed in 2005
NL architects

A chain of interventions explores unique the potential of covered open space. NL architects
The suburban city Koog aan de Zaan near Amsterdam was cut brutally in two pieces by a new
highway road in the seventies. The road literally divided church and state having on the one end a
chapel and on the other end the former city hall. After 30 years of use as a desolated parking
space the city took action seeing the space as an opportunity instead of a disaster.
A range of public facilities combined with parking linked both sides of the city again.

Programmatic interrelation

1.

Rethinking parking typology

Todays situation of the ever growing cities comprises more than large scale infrastructural elements. But,
in order to cope with all the problems the urban environment faces, these elements have to be handled
with much more care than they have been handled in the past. Infrastructure related elements have to be
designed in a new way.1 The three projects chosen for the study are rethinking parking in an attempt to
find solutions for the problems the use of car in the city poses.
Parkhouse project proposes integrated parking, in the sense that the parking is directly connected to a
program and included in the same building.

1111 project integrates both public and private functions within the parking itself.

Koog aan de Zaan is about efficiency and shifts the focus from parking towards creating a new centrality
in which parking is just another facility within the public realm.

2.

Programs
As density becomes more and more important, and as it implies an accumulation of uses, it is crucial to
rethink the way these uses, as varied as they might be, relate to each other. So, all of the three chosen
projects try in one way or another to treat the issue of density and find strong connections between the
programs they propose and the existing ones.2
Parkhouse offers 19.000 sqm of parking with increased accessibility due to its two way system. These
are related to the 35.000 sqm of space for a department store, shops, offices, apartments, restaurants,
hotel, congress center, etc.

1111 offers 300 parking places distributed on 7 levels in a 22,575 sqm building. The rest is occupied by
retail concept stores, a roof house and a garden and mixed use event spaces on different levels. The area
allocated to retail occupies 3,716sqm on the ground floor and on the 5th floor. The roof house and garden
create an extra 500 sqm in the shape of a mezzanine and ramp while the event spaces share the area
allocated to parking.

Koog aan de Zaan offers 120 parking places together with other facilities and divides the programs into 5
groups.
The dry zone contains the main public space housing both commercial activities (supermarket, fish and
flower shop) and art (Letter Columns by Marc Ruygrok, the light fountain), all served by a slightly elevated
square. The remodeled parking is part of the dry zone surrounding the elevated square and keeps the
same number of parking places as before the intervention while offering many facilities in the same area.
The youth zone houses sports related activities like skating, soccer, basketball, tennis, etc. The mini
marina offers a panorama deck and is also connected to a bus stop. A park containing sports and
recreational facilities is also designed adjacent to the main space while adjacent to the church another
public space is designed emphasizing the intimate character.
So, in this sense, all three projects offer a variety of possible experiences creating mixed use. In all three
projects the programs are directly related to the environment.
Parkhouse is very flexible in terms of the functions it can house yet the proposed ones relate to the very
central but also touristic urban character of the area.
1111 is in tune with the character of the area as well. As a high street Lincoln Road imposes a certain
prestige which the new building offers with its luxury exhibition spaces, luxury housing and designer
stores. The panoramas the project offers were specifically designed in order to create visual connections
while the commercial ground floor connects the pedestrian commercial area to the more private,
residential area.
Koog aan de Zaan attempts to solve both social and spatial problems. The facilities it offers creates in
this sense strong connections between the former divided parts bringing them together.

Parking efficiency?

Koog aan de zaan uses the existing road

3.

Urban program - parking interrelation

Certain characteristics, although related to specific cities, have now become general values that any
metropolis must take into account. Contiguity becomes more important than continuity.3 So the three
projects, by trying to redefine the parking typology, inevitably reassess the way they relate to their
environment and also the way they integrate in the city structure.
Parkhouse The project tries to assess the issue of dispersal and the effects it has on urban centers. In
other words, it tries to avoid transforming the historic centers into cultural theme parks by allowing the cars
in the city but finding another way of relating their use to the urban programs.

Although parking is integrated in the building, it is still separated from urban programs and does not add to
the public space. It is basically parking on the roof of the building. The functions within the structure may
be strongly related to the urban but it creates its own pocket. It is introverted and it is possible to isolate
itself from the city. Even the relation to the neighboring church, which is itself a statement, is purely visual.
The structure only offers vistas over the surroundings.
1111 is seen as a transfer from car use to the pedestrian experience but tries to avoid the mono
functionality of car parks. It mixes parking with public and private spaces and uses the opportunity of the
parking structure to create spectacular public spaces that offer overviews of the city.

The structure relates to the pedestrian shopping area providing parking for the potential customers. It is
not only the customers that benefit from this since it is considered that this is a public parking facility, open
24h.4
Koog aan de Zaan. In this project the parking has been remodeled so that it is just part of the focal point
that connects the two sides, so car related infrastructure and programs are no longer seen as a dividing
element but part of the urban life.

Parking surrounds the elevated square mentioned above making its presence felt but at the same time not
obstructing, or inconveniencing the public space.
So, in terms of relation between urban programs and parking, the studied projects try to create a more
dynamic connection between parking and the functions to which it relates.

4.

User experience

Parkhouse The programs are stacked in the meandering building offering permanent visual connections
between parking and city.
The connection between parking, programs and the city, so the pedestrian experience, is dominated by
the vertical circulation. The horizontal movement being car oriented the project tends to isolate itself, to
create its own pocket.
1111 The mix of programs offers unexpected results. The concept stores related to public space plus
panoramas, roof house that overlooks the event space, the city and its own garden, the parking and event
spaces offer spectacular panoramas.
The pedestrian circulation is unrestricted and is designed to interact with the public spaces and to offer
dynamic panoramas. The same approach for the car circulation that offers dynamic panoramas over the
city. Parking also directly connected to each floor of the neighboring building.
Koog aan de Zaan The dry square is the main element of the project and has the public space as its
center. The parking surrounds this main space towards all the activities are directed.
There is a shift from focus on car and parking towards the pedestrian. So the two areas on the sides of the
highway help create a continuity and connect the two sides. The mini marina and the bus stop placed
there helps to create a connection between the village and the river from which is being cut off by the
dense built riverfront

Flexibility
Flexibility can be seen in terms of users in time and in the ability to serve different functions.
Parkhouse and Koog aan de Zaan are flexible as they can be used by different users, day and
night, through the week and weekend.
1111 is flexible because the parking space itself can have different functions such as a use for
events.

Flexibility: Parkhouse

1111

Koog aan de Zaan

Parkhouse doesnt consider the roof-road being a flexible space. Being more a manifesto then a
project the idea of creating an integrated parking is given priority to design and think about the
public space. We think that this is a missed opportunity. The roof has the potential to become an
interesting public space, but it appears to be a formula 1 track. The way that artist Pipilotti Rist and
architect Carlos Martinez transformed an urban area in St-Gallen, Switzerland, could be inspiring.
They covered a large area in the center with red polymer, creating interesting public. The result is a
continuous space, a red surface that contains everything, from benches to a car. It shows that by
making an attractive design a parking place can show a different potential.
That is exactly what happens in 1111. The surface has a more luxury finishing that gives the car
park the feeling of a showroom. And by placing some artwork it becomes almost a museum. This
flexibility aspect of using the parking space as a room for activities with a nice view makes the
project very interesting. On the other hand we need also to critique this kind of flexible concept
because when festivities are organized and parking places might be needed the most, it loses
many of them.
This strategy is also implemented in Koog aan de Zaan. For the whole space under the bridge
there has been thought about giving the space a look that attracts people using different kinds of
materials. That way the space shows its opportunities and becomes flexible. Some pillars letter
collums give light at night. At the bus stop and the mini marina the collumns are covered with wood
which makes this busstop a comfortable place where you dont mind waiting. For this project the
parking space itself is not very flexible but it is implemented very intelligent. By putting it just a little
lower than the square that it surrounds, you can overlook the cars which makes the square more
spacious. The parking disappears while all other new functions dominate the space.

Pipilotti Rist & Carlos Martinez, St-Gallen

1111

Koog aan de Zaan

Public or collective space

In many cases while designing a project, spaces foreseen by the architect to be public, not always
end up being public and are rather collective.
.
For Parkhouse which is not built, we can imagine that the roofroad would become a collective
space. The architects however, did foresee that the roof would be an extension of the public road.
This contradicts with the concept to be able to park in front of your door because you cannot
assure that when the space is public. If people who dont need to use the program of the building
cant use the parking, the parking is collective and is not public. And if they can, then it isnt an
integrated parking anymore. We can imagine that barriers would be placed. Seen the fact that the
architects didnt design the space to be something more than a parking shows that they gave
priority to the concept of an integrated parking than considering the roofroad to be a public space.
For the 1111 project, Herzog & de Meuron quoted: A car park is a public facility, like a train station
or an airport, where people change from one mode of transportation to another. But is this parking
that public? There are no barriers placed and the space is open 24/7. It should be possible to also

go there when you dont have to park your car or you are not going to one of these events to enjoy
the views. A staircase, however not so inviting, can be seen from the pedestrian street.
In Koog aan de Zaan the architects really create public space by bringing many public functions
like a supermarket, a skate park, a bus stop, parking together. It is open at night and the design
foresees beautiful lightning to make the place that was seen as precarious before, now attractive.

Conclusion
In our opinion there is no place for the individual car in an historic city center like that of
Amsterdam? We think that the idea would have more potential in another context.
The building allows a promenade architecturale for cars and pedestrians by opening up to the
surroundings. This combined with different level heights and precise architectural detailing makes
the building eligible for the flexible usage of the parking space.
From a disaster to an opportunity . Through a more efficient organization and the combination of
different functions the parking loses its monofunctional character and becomes part of the public
realm.