Livegreen Blog
Multistorey car park with organic wrapper
by Christiane Burklein on Monday, 6th February 2012 in News
Multistorey car parks are unfortunately often ugly and cramped, but they are necessary in our cities overcrowded with cars. In Leipzig, Germany, HPP - Hentrich-Petschnigg & Partner GmbH of Düsseldorf has built a virtuous car park, demonstrating that it is possible to make this type of infrastructure both pleasant and sustainable.
The award-winning project is the result of a competition announced by Leipzig zoo in 2002. More than 1.3 million zoo visitors a year meant more parking spaces were required, and after finishing the first building in 2004 an expansion was required with a new building, opened in January 2012.
The city now has another 800 parking spots on five levels, which are used not only by zoo visitors but by people going to the nearby conference centre.
The project’s central theme is its bamboo wrapper, as in its predecessor; the material was chosen for the construction as part of a specific workshop. The result is not only an ecological facade made of thousands of bamboo trunks for a type of construction that is notoriously un-green, but a relationship with the adjacent zoological gardens, preparing people to visit the exotic world of Leipzig’s zoo before they even leave the parking lot.
Design: HPP - Hentrich-Petschnigg & Partner GmbH, Düsseldorf, http://www.hpp.com
Client: Zoo Leipzig GmbH
Location: Leipzig, Germany
Photographs: PUNCTUM/Betrand Kober, http://www.punctum.net
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