A supercharged park: Exploring architecture as a means to actively engage infrastructure, creating a socially and culturally exhilarating piece of construction

Abstract

Post World War II surface car parking lots constituted the most salient feature of the modern landscape. Approaching the 21st century there has been a conscious effort to lessen their effect on cities, relocating cars to parking buildings and mechanical systems and creating extensive public transport networks. These approaches have transformed the streetscape of cities globally, however they are not easily adapted to smaller regional centres.

Titled ‘A Supercharged Park’ the project is a speculative response to the infrastructural requirements of Paraparaumu, a low density regional town centre located in close proximity to Wellington. The required car parking lots dominate the landscape severing pedestrian connections within and around the centres. Technological innovation will undeniably alter the car in its current form, however private transport methods are likely to remain important. The unrelenting focus on public transport solutions globally means there has been little consideration of how private transport could be better integrated into these regional town centres.

These inquires are tested through design-led research, initiated by the design question and provoking broader discursive research. A Supercharged Park proposes a strategy for the relocation of car parking from surface lots to a building, reclaiming the natural and built form for the pedestrian realm. The terraced scheme functions like a park, with an 1,800 capacity car park acting as a foundation creating an artificial topography on which the pedestrian programmes sit (figure 1.00).

Taking this urban condition as the premise, this thesis investigates architecture’s role in infrastructural systems, exploring the potential silver lining of car use in New Zealand’s regional town centres. It asks: how can architecture be utilised as a means to actively engage infrastructure, creating a socially and culturally exhilarating piece of construction?` Identifying infrastructural systems as an opportunity for architectural experimentation and critical engagement, satisfying the prosaic realities and exploring the optimistic possibilities hybridisation with architecture presents.

The body of the thesis is separated into four sections each exploring the qualitative aspects architecture provides the quantitative infrastructural underpinning: A High Octane Programme, Light Injection, Mulitmode Connections and Structure as Pattern.

A High Octane Programme investigates the use of cross programming in infrastructural systems, exploring the opportunity transitional spaces present for increasing occupancy and reducing future redundancies. The terraced surface contains loosely programmed node points from which pedestrian activity expands and contracts depending on the level of occupation (figure 1.01).

Pedestrian ‘pop outs’ occur during high use times including weekends and evenings, coinciding with low car parking demand (figure 1.02). The nodes retreat to only the fixed pavilion spaces during weekdays when the car park is functioning at peak occupation (figure 1.03).

Light Injection discusses the need for natural illumination in extra large buildings, exploring the relationship between pedestrian occupation and light.

Multimode Connections explores the need for a multiplicity of connections within and beyond the design providing opportunities for urban interaction and human response to the surrounding spaces.

Finally, Structure as Pattern considers the structural requirements of the project exploring how architectural thinking can be used to accentuate the qualitative features of infrastructural pragmatics (figure 1.01).

The implications of this design-led thesis are twofold: firstly, concerning architecture’s role in place making (especially within regional town centres); secondly for the possibilities of architecture’s active engagement with infrastructure. In a time where infrastructural systems are being designed not only for present use but speculating future occupations, this type of thinking - what can architecture’s qualitative nature offer quantitative infrastructures? - is crucial.