Carpark

A carpark , or with the Quebec parking area or simply parking , is a space or a building specifically arranged for the Stationnement of the Véhicule S. One generally finds some beside the public buildings (Gare, Aéroport), of the work places, the shopping malls or in front of large surfaces to accommodate the users.

It is a word which comes from English, undoubtedly derived from the terms carpark zone or carpark batch , or carpark bay (parking bay).

The word carpark does not exist in this direction in the English language and thus constitutes a Faux Anglicism. In English, one uses the word rather because park in the British Isles and carpark batch in anglophone North America to indicate a carpark of work or a wide carpark of surface. On the origin of the word “carpark”, to also see http://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Motivation_(linguistique)#Motivation_en_diachronie and http://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anglais#mots_de_racine_anglo-saxonne

The universal descriptive symbol meaning carpark is a P capital letter white on a disc or a blue square. In North America on the other hand, the bottom is green One finds it on panels which announce the access of a carpark of work, a parking bay or car park. It is also taken again like such on the road maps and the plans of cities.

When they are expressly authorized and reserved for the parking, the sites where it is possible to park a vehicle in the street, them also, are sometimes announced by this same symbol. This one is generally reproduced on panels or the ticket machines installed in the vicinity to deliver the tickets of payment to the motorists who come to station there. One does not speak however about carpark but about layby. One also speaks about parking in roadway system. Insofar as the urban space is rare and where the number of vehicles does not cease increasing, the access to these places tends more and more to being regulated, limited in the duration, even paying, generally according to the duration. There exist various means of payment and of access control of the parking in roadway system, which is not inevitably the same ones as those used in the carparks.

Type of carparks

Carpark of surface

Lime pit foot is located, outside, on public space or private. This type of carpark includes/understands the parking in roadway system (places along a street, of a quay, etc) and the spaces released for this purpose between buildings, or established on old fields, old waste grounds, etc

Restricted parking zone

The restricted parking zone is a layby regulated, limited in the duration. It is not a question of a carpark strictly speaking, but of a zone where the parking in roadway system is authorized. Can park there the motorists who have a parking disc. This accessory is composed of a hard-bound or plasticized small pocket containing a hard-bound disc, fastened with the small pocket in its center in order to be able to turn. On the disc are reproduced on the one hand possible hours of arrival, on the other hand the authorized duration and the corresponding times of departure, by knowing that the duration of parking in restricted parking zone is generally limited to 1:30. The motorist turns the disc to reveal the selected schedules opposite the windows cut out for this purpose in the small pocket, and affixes it against the windshield inside its vehicle. Even if one finds it still into certain small towns, this accessory, which knew its hour of glory in France in the years 1970 and whose principle rested on the good will of the motorists (many are those who went down again to change the hour of their disc once the past duration authorized), today fell in disuse, replaced by the ticket machine. This one makes it possible to control the duration of parking much more effectively and equitably.

Underground car park

They are generally arranged in the cities where they make it possible to answer the problems of place. Most of the time they offer several levels. Each level is connected with a traditional carpark with the difference which the ground can be covered with a particular coating and which one finds of the pillars with regular intervals to support the structure. To pass from a level to another, it is necessary to use Rampe Once parked S., Ascenseur S or Escalier S make it possible the drivers to go back to surface.

Multistorey parking lot

A multistorey parking lot is a building built in outside. Its operating process resembles much that of the underground car park to the difference which he does not ask of heavy work of digging. There too slopes make it possible to assemble or descend the stages in the car, and there are elevators and staircases for the pedestrians.

Carpark-relay

Carpark-relays (P+R) or Park And Ride are in periphery of the cities. It is not rare that this type of carpark is subsidized by the city or the state, because they lighten circulation of center town without reducing general mobility.

Philosophical problems or of Urbanization of the carpark

Appearing with the generalization of the car at the beginning of the twentieth century, the carpark is immediately designed like a space of pure function. Abstracted neutral, generalized, without geographical fasteners; as many characteristics which seem to attach its design to the modernistic doctrines then incipient, which propose to bind space and scale to the detriment of the place. However, while the modern movement orders that all measurements and dimensions of architecture and town planning are based on the human scale, the standards defining the carpark they are fixed according to a " Modulor automobile" ?

Is the carpark a place? One can think that without report/ratio on a human scale, the carpark is only one space for the man who crosses it, however this space is constituted of an addition of standard elements, derived from the car, which are organized, arranged according to repetitive configurations adjusted with the dimension of the places.

The scale is in a certain found way, not like reference to the body but like modular repetition. One joins again with the " modulor" , but in a parody mechanist and inorganic. It is not any more the man who is the measurement of all things, in fact the things give the measurement of the man.

Technique

In the underground car parks one uses various techniques in order to maximize safety, to optimize the management of the site and to make the carpark pleasant and simple to use.

The problems of circulation in the carparks of great dimension (several hundreds of places) which one find in the hypermarkets and the shopping malls is studied more and more by the persons in charge of these carparks. However, these problems of circulation are only recently studied by specialized research departments.

Ventilation

In the car parks underground, one uses sensors of air in order to analyze in real-time the level of CO (carbon monoxide) or CO2 (carbon dioxide) and NO (nitric oxyde) or NO2 (nitrogen dioxide). According to the result of measurements the impulse and aspiration of air of the carpark are activated. So in spite of the activation of ventilations the levels does not drop, the speed of ventilation and increased. Lastly, with the top of a certain level, alarms are activated.

Lighting

Lighting is an important expenditure for the owner of the carpark. All technologies available are thus used to reduce the consumption of electricity. The gas-discharge lamps are often used, in particular with sodium high and low pressure (yellow-orange light). The modern carparks privilege lighting by white light. The metal halides are then an alternative of choice.

Access

The management of the access makes it possible to increase the safety and the profitability of the site. Several suppliers of tolls propose control systems of access.

Pedestrian access

August 1st

Access Conveys

August 1st

Guidance in the place

Guidance in the place makes it possible to find immediately the free place nearest by indicating to the motorists the levels, the alleys then the places available by a set of display panels as well as indicators to diodes with the right of each place (the managed whole in a dynamic way in real-time). These systems make it possible to find a place approximately 4 times more quickly than in a carpark not equipped. Some sytèmes go even until accommodating the motorist by a sound message personalized , precisely indicating the site of its vehicle to him.

Dimensioning

The dimensioning of the parking spaces for an arrangement in " bataille" is in the following way given:

a minimal width of 2,20m.
a length of 4,80m if the dimension of release is higher than 5,80m, a length of 5,00m if the dimension of release is lower than equal to 5,80m.

For the handicapped people the minimal width of a place must be 2,50 m and a space of a minimum of 80 cm must be present between two places. The purpose of this band of 80 cm is to allow a wheel chair to reach the vehicle.

Culture

The carparks are often selected like place of action in cultural works such as the films and the Video games.

Artistic intervention

The approach of the problems of parking, location, orientation and circulation inside the parks passes a request of the glance, is addressed to faculty to memorize, combining also logical and approval.

The presence of an artistic event, such as a Mural on the walls of a car park contributes to the quality of the framework of life. This step towards the user encourages very naturally with the respect of the places thus treated.

Thus developed, the car parks, spaces of transition for the users between the car and the city, change and can cheaply become sizeable and respected.

Internal bonds

Mural, Fresco, Trompe-l'oeil, Carpark-relay

External bonds

Mural of the carpark of the station of Saint-Pierre-of-Body.
Mural of the carpark of the station of Poitiers
Photographs and paintings with l´huile on fabric of carparks

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