The End Of Parking Lots As We Know Them: Designing For A Driverless Future

The End Of Parking Lots As We Know Them: Designing For A Driverless Future

MAY 18, 2018

Alan Ohnsman , FORBES STAFF 

A world in which robotic ride and delivery services are commonplace is years away, but what to do if you’ve got big-ticket commercial real estate projects in the works now? Turns out that future is already being baked in, according to the largest U.S. architecture firm.

Gensler

Lower-level floors of the Gensler-designed 84.51° Centre in Cincinnati are used for parking but designed to blend in with the rest of the building, with an eye toward converting them to office space in the future.

The full impact of self-driving vehicle technology will unfold over years, but Andy Cohen, the Los Angeles-based co-CEO for design firm Gensler, is convinced it will bring the end of parking structures as we know them, require more expansive building drop-off and pickup zones and more elaborate entry lobbies. Over time it opens up opportunities to reclaim curb space dedicated to metered parking and redevelop land in prime urban spots currently taken up by gas stations.

“Developers are recognizing that the urban landscape is going to change, and they have to design buildings, especially long-term builders, that they have to design buildings for the future,” Cohen told Forbes. “The impact of this technology that’s coming is going to be massive. …I’m saying to clients: What are you going to do with all the space for parking in the future? Why can't we design buildings now that, if we're going to put parking in, it can be adapted to other uses?”

From the early days of the Google Self-Driving Car project nearly a decade ago, autonomous driving proponents touted the technology’s potential to reduce traffic fatalities and make commuting less stressful, along with its potential to remake urban landscapes. The first set of goals was clear; the latter not so much. But with Waymo, the Alphabet Inc. unit created to commercialize Google’s R&D, launching an on-demand robot ride service in Phoenix this year, followed by GM’s Cruise in 2019, and newcomers like robotaxi startup Zoox aiming to start service in 2020, aspects are coming into view. One is that more rides will be taken in shared vehicles that don’t park.

China is particularly worked up about the potential for new urban design, seen in projects like its "Xiongan New Area" in Hebei Province that's being created from the ground up to accommodate self-driving vehicles, drones and a range of AI-enabled services. Likewise, Alphabet's Sidewalk Labs unit announced plans in October for an ambitious redevelopment project in Toronto that will incorporate robot Waymo vehicles. But in most cases, new projects will have to be designed to work within existing city layouts.

https://www.forbes.com/sites/alanohnsman/2018/05/18/end-of-parking-lot-autonomous-cars/#60a409b7244b

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