I walked passed a building the other day that looked like it had a parking garage on the third and fourth floors. It struck me as odd. There was retail space below and above the two floors. I’ve seen both of these before (parking above ground floor retail and office space on top of an above ground parking garage), but always separately, not together in the same structure. I’m not a huge fan of parking garages, but this got me thinking.
One of the most “offensive” parts of large office buildings is the lack of natural light available in interior spaces (inoperable windows are high on that list). Similarly, cities aren’t as walkable as they could, or I would argue should, be. By getting parking spaces off the street, it would be easier to expand bike lanes and sidewalks.
How are these related then? My thought was essentially to hollow out the inside of buildings and put parking garages there. I’m not talking about putting them under the building, I’m thinking within. No need to dig down. If you were to look at a building from above, the “interior” would become parking (there’s no natural light that reaches these spaces anyway) and the “shell” or exterior of the building that gets natural light would remain residential/office/commercial space. I don’t know if the visual I’m trying to paint works so I’ve included the diagram above.
This would be something designed from the start, not literally hollowing the interior of existing buildings, although that would be crazy to see. Land use decisions, especially in urban centers where space is at a premium and a valuable asset, have to be more creative. Just widening streets or creating more roads has been shown to increase traffic. Think supply and demand, sort of. The greater supply of road, the more they’re going to get used.
My hollow building-parking garage idea may not come to pass, but, we need to start thinking more radically to make our cities more walkable and buildings more comfortable/sustainable.
