Car Park Architecture - Part 2

I have been in Bristol a couple of days a week of late and my various routes from Temple Meads have taken me past a number of fantastic examples of concrete architecture which have included the NCP multi-storey car park on Lower Castle Street in Broadmead.

Broadmead multi-storey car park, Lower Castle Street, Bristol

Although flanked on either side by the much bigger Castlemead tower and Marriott Hotel, it nonetheless holds its own architecturally and in fact all three buildings sit satisfying well together. (I will include more on Castlemead Tower in a future post).

Castlemead Tower, Broadmead car park and The Marriott hotel.

I especially like the way the designers employed a split-level construction with this building. Multi-storey car parks usually seem to be built in continuous horizontal layers so perhaps the sloping terrain here led towards this particular architectural solution. Or maybe the designers just fancied trying something different to mirror the slope of the street. Either way, it resulted in giving the whole structure an additional vertical dynamism, a bit like a fault line on a rock face.

Broadmead multi-storey car park facade

A closer inspection reveals that each layer has nicely bevelled-off edges and corners which gives the impression that the two sections are just about to interlock with each other.

Close-up of the nicely designed concrete edges of the parking decks.

Although this is not a plug for National Car Parks, I also happen to think that the NCP logo is a great piece of design in its own right and the contrast between the black on yellow signage and concrete car park walls is visually always very satisfying.

The NCP logo always stands out well.

Referring back to an earlier post on Bristol car parks, I have recently come across a short  Pathé news film from 1961, showcasing the brand new (as it was then) Rupert Street multi-storey car park.

http://www.britishpathe.com/video/multi-deck-garage