Case Study 2: Commercial Property Car Park Design
Project Overview:
A commercial client required a complete redesign of their car park for a popular Antiques Centre and Restaurant.
The brief was to transform a purely functional space into an attractive and well-organized entrance for customers, while meeting the specific requirements of 70 car parking spaces, including 3 for disabled access and 8 for staff.
IMAGE: basic layout of space for proposed car park
The Challenge:
The existing car park was a purely utilitarian space that did not align with the company's professional image.
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The design had to accommodate the specific number of vehicles in a confined area, managing a single entrance/exit.
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Crucially, the car park’s close proximity to the restaurant’s outdoor dining terrace presented a significant challenge with potential issues of noise, fumes, and a lack of privacy.
IMAGE: propsed car parking at 90* alignment, with combination two-way and one-way flow
IMAGE: propsed car parking at 45* alignment, with predominantly one-way flow
My Solution:
To overcome these complexities, I developed two distinct design options. Both designs focused on creating clear and efficient vehicle flow from the single entrance and provide pedestrian access to the restaurant terrace.
My solution incorporated strategic hard landscaping to meet the specific parking quotas, while integrating a comprehensive planting scheme to soften the space. The new tree canopy also helps to mitigate heat reflected from hard surfaces during the summer months.
Beyond aesthetics, this soft landscaping was designed to act as a Sustainable Drainage System (SuDS) to manage stormwater runoff, while the plant selections were chosen to improve air quality, enhance biodiversity, and help attenuate noise from the car park, providing a valuable benefit for the adjacent outdoor dining terrace.
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The preferred solution, a 45-degree angle car park, was chosen for its clear advantages. This design allows for nearly double the number of trees and planting areas, which significantly increases all the long-term ecological benefits. Furthermore, this proposal maintains a predominantly one-way traffic flow, which is simpler and more intuitive for users than the combined one-way/two-way system of the alternative.
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Outcome:
The final design, based on the preferred 45-degree angle proposal, created a car park that was both highly efficient and a valuable asset to the residential property.
It not only provided a clear, well-organized layout for both cars and people but also successfully elevated a functional space into an extension of the brand.
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IMAGE: propsed car parking at 45* alignment, with predominantly one-way flow
This single-way system and increased planting demonstrated how thoughtful design can resolve practical challenges while providing valuable environmental benefits, from improved biodiversity and air quality to passive heat mitigation.