A Parking Lot That Turns Into A House

[M II A II R II K]

A Parking Lot That Turns Into A House


July 30th, 2012

By Ariel Schwartz

Read More: http://www.fastcoexist.com/1680258/a...into-a-house#1

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The Parking + Housing project, submitted to this year’s James Dyson Award, asks us to imagine a place where people don’t have many possessions and don’t mind losing access to their homes during the day.

- Once evening hits (and presumably all the cars have exited), the parking garage inflates into small studio living spaces that are each divided into two parts: a fixed unit with storage, a bathroom, and a kitchen, and a separate bedroom that inflates and deflates using a pneumatic system. All furniture--and other furnishings--would have to be stuffed into the fixed area during the day.

- Sure, there are holes in the design: Where do people park when they get home? And what happens if someone wants to stay home from work? This would only work for someone who needs a place to rest their head at night, and nothing more. But consider this: Cities around the world are growing rapidly, and will only continue to balloon as the population grows. Already, urban centers are considering creative space-saving ideas.

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• Video Link

[mhays]

Interesting. But doesn't appear to solve more problems than it creates.

I also don't get the see-through walls. What is it with modern design and assuming people want to live in fish bowls?

[photoLith]

Yeah, no. That would be extremely inconvenient and quite ridiculous.

[Tony]

No thanks, I don't need gas / oil / anti freeze or whatever drips off cars on my bedroom floor. Not to mention all the airborne particulate.

[Jonboy1983]

My solution is essentially to construct many 40-50-plus-story buildings that are mixed use. Have office and retail on lower floors with the upper floors designated for living spaces, and encourage the employees on the lower floors to select living spaces on the upper floors of the buildings. That way, you can board an elevator to get to your place of work. The building could have geothermal heating and solar powered energy, or have a rooftop park for recreational use. Of course, this idea has long since been addressed, but suppose there was a whole community of these built around public transportation?

[eleven=11]

just get Mike Holmes from canada to build better houses.

[mhays]

Originally Posted by Jonboy1983

My solution is essentially to construct many 40-50-plus-story buildings that are mixed use. Have office and retail on lower floors with the upper floors designated for living spaces, and encourage the employees on the lower floors to select living spaces on the upper floors of the buildings. That way, you can board an elevator to get to your place of work. The building could have geothermal heating and solar powered energy, or have a rooftop park for recreational use. Of course, this idea has long since been addressed, but suppose there was a whole community of these built around public transportation?

Mixing uses can work well if the economy is good enough and each use will pencil. In today's economy it's generall very difficult, and each added use is a hurdle for the overall project.

Few residents want random passers-by to be in their hallways. So in a mixed building, you either have a sky lobby for residents or everyone goes to the ground floor before going to the other "side".

[THE BIG APPLE]

Who comes up with this shit. Let's worry about putting people in homes and giving then food, and trust me if everyone had decent money stuff like this wouldn't see the light of day.

[jd3189]

I believe there's a fatal flaw in this that the article is trying to avoid, but if I'm wrong, someone please correct me. If people are expected to live in these houses that turn into garages, where the hell are these people suppose to live when these houses are garages? This is confusing.

[THE BIG APPLE]

^ I'm assuming that half of the structure you could leave as a garage and the other half would turn into a home, BUT that's the same thing as a home with a garage, or an apartment/condo with underground parking.

[Derek]

Dumbest. Idea. Ever.

[LeeWilson]

It seems the idea is that when the person leaves home for work, their home turns into a parking space, and when they come home it reverts to a living space. There are three especially confusing parts though:

1. Do you have to pack up and empty out all of your furniture and belongings from 75% of your apartment space every single time you leave for work in the morning, and then put it all back when you come home? If so, where do you store it all? What if you accidentally leave your cellphone or something in the flexible part? Does it get crushed?

2. I can only assume that the car owner and apartment owner are different people, since it wouldn't make sense to retrieve your car from elsewhere, then drive back home and park there just to go to work. But if it's someone else parked in your apartment, what do you do if you come home and the car is still there? Just expand your apartment anyway and dump the car onto the sidewalk?

3. What do you do if you take a day off work? I notice in the renderings that the entire thing squashes up so that it's impossible access the stairs or doors to get in or out. If one person stays at home, is the entire thing unable to transform? And who controls when the building transforms?

[photoLith]

^
Its an incredibly stupid idea.

[vid]

Originally Posted by LeeWilson

It seems the idea is that when the person leaves home for work, their home turns into a parking space, and when they come home it reverts to a living space. There are three especially confusing parts though:

1. Do you have to pack up and empty out all of your furniture and belongings from 75% of your apartment space every single time you leave for work in the morning, and then put it all back when you come home? If so, where do you store it all? What if you accidentally leave your cellphone or something in the flexible part? Does it get crushed?

2. I can only assume that the car owner and apartment owner are different people, since it wouldn't make sense to retrieve your car from elsewhere, then drive back home and park there just to go to work. But if it's someone else parked in your apartment, what do you do if you come home and the car is still there? Just expand your apartment anyway and dump the car onto the sidewalk?

3. What do you do if you take a day off work? I notice in the renderings that the entire thing squashes up so that it's impossible access the stairs or doors to get in or out. If one person stays at home, is the entire thing unable to transform? And who controls when the building transforms?

You would think that these questions would be asked before the idea is published.

[Bedhead]

Originally Posted by LeeWilson

3. What do you do if you take a day off work? I notice in the renderings that the entire thing squashes up so that it's impossible access the stairs or doors to get in or out.

LOL can you imagine the sense of disappointment if you overslept and woke up to the sound of your apartment being crushed?

I guess one way it could work is if a company has a large parking lot, and sometimes it has workers who need to stay overnight.

Part of the parking lot could be converted to worker accomodation overnight, saving the company money. Not all the parking would have to be converted, so the workers who were staying over could keep their cars in the non-converted area.

Still, the workers would essentially be living in a tent overnight, which wouldn't be brilliant.