Grey. Lifeless. Boring. Cold. Concrete.

Carparks.

They are literally functional spaces. You park your car, you get out (unless ofcourse you are a pre-pubescent teenager…loiteringi n the carpark – drinking some bacardi breezers with the opposite sex!).

They are also a space which is unavoidably accident prone. Yes… I speak from personal experience. Last year, I backed my yellow car into a yellow column in my work car park – in my defense I thought the yellow column was an extension of my car…it was dark…it was a friday night….the impact smashed my whole back window – I had turned my car into a convertible. I can assure you – it WAS NOT on purpose.

I don’t even want to start on shopping mall carparks – whilst they have a little more ‘colour’…it is purely for symbolic purposes – to help you can (apparently) ‘find’ your car. That’s a lie – I always still lose mine…or see someone else looking for theirs.

But – I ask the question – do carparks have to be so boring? Apparently not – check out this cool car park

The latest in a spate of large-scale art installations by the New York-Sydney duo of Craig & Karl is the basement garage of a boutique residence in Sydney’s Darling Point, designed by Marsh Cashman Koolloos (MCK) Architecture and Interiors. The project objective had been to “breathe new life” into the concrete underground car park devoid of natural light, and the artful pair has accomplished this with broad dashes of color and clever use of geometry. An inexplicable manhole surreptitiously takes point in this floor to ceiling mural, posing as the center axis of a windmill or color spectrum chart with colored ribbons that instinctively lead in from the driveway, through the space, and out to the garden and beyond.

(Image via The Cool Hunter)

(Image via openbuildings.com)

How cool is this?! A makeshift library in a carpark (Located – Brisbane, Australia)

(Image via Pinterest)

So next time as your feel ‘carpark rage’ taking a hold of you…Stop. Breathe. And get inspired by the concrete slabs – if you could design a unique and innovative carpark…what would it look like?

Over and Out.

Happy Sunday!