Sufficient parking capacity is an important factor and necessary evil in the campus master plan. Surface lots don’t have much to offer other than a place to park a car. Parking decks offer a higher density but they are expensive and most are probably considered a visual and physical obstruction to pedestrians. UNCG has over 3000 deck spaces with plans to expand that number by 1700 spaces in the future through two separate expansion projects. The parking decks are included on the list of tallest/largest buildings on UNCG’s campus. Note that the Oakland deck expansion will include a pedestrian bridge across the NC train tracks, an apparent attempt to cross the boundaries of the southern part of campus.
The location of a future deck seems to be a difficult decision to make. If you’re building over an existing surface lot, where do all of those people who used to park there, park now? In this case, it seems UNCG has partially developed our Lee street site into an overflow parking lot for that exact reason (as far as the design phase is concerned, everything on the site is open to our decision). Integrating parking as a mixed-use option in the program makes for interesting design opportunities since it has the potential to serve the university and the city. Perhaps taking that one step further and integrating a transportation hub into the program could be an even more complex design experience. The hub could include light rail, a bus station, or just serve as major node (or district if it became concentrated enough) for high density parking on campus.
The location of a future deck seems to be a difficult decision to make. If you’re building over an existing surface lot, where do all of those people who used to park there, park now? In this case, it seems UNCG has partially developed our Lee street site into an overflow parking lot for that exact reason (as far as the design phase is concerned, everything on the site is open to our decision). Integrating parking as a mixed-use option in the program makes for interesting design opportunities since it has the potential to serve the university and the city. Perhaps taking that one step further and integrating a transportation hub into the program could be an even more complex design experience. The hub could include light rail, a bus station, or just serve as major node (or district if it became concentrated enough) for high density parking on campus.
1 comment:
Even though studying site maps are an important aspect to this project, the artifacts and pictures you have taken of them are what tell a bigger story. I love the fact that you used those pieces to develop ideas for what will replace the abandoned area from which the artifacts came from. (i repeated artifacts too many times but i could not think of another word besides things), any who I enjoy your thought process and can't wait to start the next phase.
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