In a revealing essay about the future of the car, journalist Henry Grabar states that “Large numbers of streets could be decommissioned and reused as promenades, parks, and sites for housing. Most downtown parking could also become obsolete. The average car is parked 95 percent of the time, and parking spots are required, at great cost, in housing, retail, and office construction.”
“(…) The Rocky Mountain Institute, a sustainability think tank in Boulder, Colorado, argues that Automated Vehicles will quickly challenge the private ownership model. In a report released in September, RMI calculates that self-driving cars will make automated taxi service in cities as cheap, per mile, as personal vehicle ownership. Jon Walker, a manager at RMI and co-author of the report, anticipates that autonomous vehicles’ superior use of road space—optimal acceleration and spacing, for example—will unleash a wave of urban transformation. Even if the number of cars on the road doubled, he argues, traffic would still move faster.”
in How will self-driving cars change cities?, Slate Daily Magazine, 25/10/2016
Continuing these arguments, the private parking will change, too. Maybe less people will own a car in the near future and therefore parking lots will have to be flexible spaces able to adapt to the future needs of driverless-car buildings and cities.
In our just finished project, the BsAs Building, we designed a parking level which is permeable, open and totally transparent vis-à-vis the sidewalk. The garage becomes a garden, a playground, a living room etc.
Anyway, irrespective of any futurology exercise, a green garage is certainly better than a gray garage.
+info: NovoMorar.com.br