A parking garage doesn’t have to look like an ugly box. But designing one that’s functional and looks interesting, or at least fits in, can be an architectural challenge.
Teams of architects now work together to try to mesh form and function, and position the structures on sites in a way that makes sense for cities and communities.
Providence and other cities are peppered with functional, if unattractive, garages. Most cities have been trying, through regulations and design review, to encourage more visually interesting ones.
Design for parking garages has evolved, said Joseph M. Caldeira, a senior associate at Providence-based Vision 3 Architects. Long an essential element in a city’s infrastructure, garages are making more of a statement, he said.
“Architects, urban planners and even local municipalities are looking at parking garages in a new light,” Caldeira said. “They want it to be not only utilitarian, but also to complement their cities.”
Since early 2015, the new Providence downtown zoning code requires office space, retail or other permitted uses in parking garages, and a transparency that would allow pedestrians to look inside as they walk along the sidewalk.
Only with a waiver can that requirement be set aside. In the case of the new parking garage at South Street Landing, that’s already happened. That 740-space garage, which recently opened, does not have ground-level retail or a transparency. Instead, it features a series of historical photos. The garage architect is Spagnolo, Gisness & Associates, of Boston.
The next garage expected to emerge in Providence will create parking behind the Garrahy Courthouse. Vision 3 Architects, the image, or exterior, architect for the project, revised its initial design after a city design panel critiqued its plan for the exterior cladding.
The state-owned garage will provide parking for courthouse personnel, as well as visitors and employees of tenants in the Interstate 195 Redevelopment District. It will hold up to 1,250 cars.
Although the new design has initial approval, it would create less retail or office space at street level than is required under Providence zoning, so a waiver will be needed, Caldeira said.
To soften its scale, the design includes exterior art elements, to counter the stacked concrete of the seven parking levels, as well as landscaping to soften its edges. It will have retail or other permitted uses on Richmond Street, but not on Clifford Street, Caldeira said.
“We’re trying to maximize the number of parking spaces,” Caldeira said of the requested waiver.
The Downtown Design Review Committee is the panel that looks at design requirements for garages in downtown Providence. Garages are expensive to build, and sometimes, if the developer lacks a budget to embellish the façade, the details that can break up the massing are value-engineered out of the design, explained Clark Schoettle, the committee’s vice chairman.
In the case of the Garrahy design, the first design was an example of trying too hard, he said. “They tried too hard to make a big statement out of it. It just ended up being this big, monster thing.”
‘The building … should interact with the pedestrian for a better experience.’
CLARK SCHOETTLE, Downtown Design Review Committee vice chairman
The city’s requirement for street-level transparency, and business or other uses, is to break up that massing. “It’s really the pedestrian experience of walking on the sidewalk,” Schoettle said. “The idea is the building on the edge of the sidewalk should interact with the pedestrian for a better experience.”
For this reason, he said he’s not happy with the South Street Landing garage. “Ugly as anything. It doesn’t look like what we approved,” he said.
Ask architects and urban planners about garages that do work well, and a few names float to the surface.
The Johnson & Wales University garage, also designed by Vision 3 Architects, wins praise for its use of brick and glass to complement the surrounding buildings on Richmond Street.
On Richmond, the garage has meeting spaces for commuting students and other organizations. “It makes it look like it’s a part of the streetscape,” Schoettle said.
Another garage that has received praise from architects is a renovation. The Providence Biltmore parking garage created a lineup of small-business spaces facing Washington Street. The garage is shielded from view at street level by a metal canopy extending over the sidewalk.
For the shop owners, who lease their space from building owner Cornish Associates, the smaller footprint put them in the heart of the Providence business district.
Frankie Cecchinelli owns Figidini, a restaurant specializing in shared plates and Neopolitan pizzas. He was among the first to move in four years ago. Working with just 888 square feet, he had to think creatively about layout and function. He has seven tables inside and a stylish, 12-seat bar.
Outside, the metal awning allowed him to place a few café tables. The garage? In several dozen online reviews of Figidini, no one mentioned it. “They don’t notice it,” Cecchinelli said.
Why was he interested in locating in a parking structure? The small space put him in the center of downtown Providence. “I thought it was quite clever, what they did with it.”
