Fantastic Garages: Parking, Reconsidered

One of the biggest problems with all the single-family house is your garage: its own layout (apparently an afterthought in many cases), its dimensions, and its positioning. The norm, an attached multi-car garage often closer to the street than the front door, needs improvement. This ideabook takes a broad look in garages as well as carports and drives to see how the storage of automobiles can be better integrated to the design of houses.

More: Entry Canopies: The New Porch

Architects Magnus

This garage jumps off the screen for the translucent doors that stand out at night. Nonetheless, it’s safe to assume that most of the time the lights are off and the wood screen predominates, as throughout the day. These horizontal slats remain in a band throughout the front of the house, developing a strong link between the two; this is reinforced in the garage’s roof doubling as a patio to your master bedroom.

Abramson Teiger Architects

A similar maneuver is found in this house, in how the one-story wood saying layered in front continues across to the garage on the left.

Webber + Studio, Architects

A four-car garage can be unwieldy all of the circumstances may be, but the architects on this project created four distinct doors, instead of two larger ones. Above is a cantilevered glass volume that uses the roof over the garage to get a patio.

LAB+

This modern house — two boxes with large jagged glass openings — comprises the garage by continuing the irregular nature of the windows over. The garage is tight into the corner, revealing the thickness of the exterior wall in the process. It is a special design, but you can learn from it how the garage can be integrated with the house, both physically and in terms of style.

Mark pinkerton – vi360 photography

The following batch of examples are exactly what I call the”village approach.” Both the house and garage are composed of smaller amounts, sometimes literally but in many instances officially through the articulation of roofs and outside walls. In this case the garagecovered in wood with a translucent door, fronts a house that is highly articulated contemporary makeup.

Darwin Webb Landscape Architects, P.S.

Numerous roofs and overhangs provide this L-shaped house some character. The garage and entrance face a generous forecourt, but the existence of the former is softened by a trellis, a green roof and other vegetation.

Birdseye Design

The garage (left) along with farmhouse (right) are linked by a covered walkway that is echoed in the design of the house.

Webber + Studio, Architects

The village comparison is very strong in this huge, 11,000-square-foot house. Here we see the multi-car garage along with an arched opening…

Webber + Studio, Architects

… The opening leads to a village-like”street” between the garage and the main house.

CG&S Design-Build

A new garage can be found to the left of this house. A closer look beyond the gate between the two volumes shows…

CG&S Design-Build

… a quaint walkway linking the garage and house. A sliding metal door offers access to and from the garage, an interesting touch.

John Lum Architecture, Inc.. AIA

However, let’s not forget city dwellings, in which a village approach is rather difficult. Small lots require other solutions, like this ground-floor garage that has a similar look to the windows over.

At the very least the way the windows are stacked over the garage and entrance give the facade a logic, though each pieces is comprehensive otherwise.

Ian Moore Architects

This garage in the rear of a house actually puts the car on screen.

Ian Moore Architects

At the rear of this narrow townhouse is your ground-floor garage, which can be integrated with the window above, so the a two-story opening is created in the brick wall.

PLACE architect ltd..

The zone before the garage is just as critical as, say, the garage door or in which the garage is situated relative to the house. An increasingly common approach is to utilize a drivable bud surface, be it a product that is hidden under the blades or incorporating grass between pavers. Grass paving permits water that would normally run in the street and sewer to enter the floor and be naturally filtered. Here bud is found beside the garage, in the base of a more traditional driveway.

Robert Granoff

The design in this lawn points to how it is a hybrid surface that can be driven .

That same pattern is observable in front of this house, pointing to its own use as a parking space, and making a segue into the next group of jobs: carports.

Frederick + Frederick Architects

First are a couple projects that combine garages and carports. Here we see the two side by side, which makes sense in the South Carolina locale.

FrontPorch

A more contemporary and disconnected take can be found in this example. Following the driveway that goes from right to left in the photograph we encounter first a seat under the corner of the house; in far left is a driveway extension that heads back into the garage in the rear.

crestviewdoors

In this case the carport is associated with the house via a roof extension. The columns holding up the roof help demarcate the two parking spaces.

This stunning home uses a dramatic roof form as a cover for parked cars. Entry to the house is down some steps barely visible at right.

Goring & Straja Architects

Last is this interesting house that comes with a freestanding wood construction (visible in the photograph at right) as a carport in front of the house.

Goring & Straja Architects

Up close, this construction comes with a whole lot of detail along with a translucent cover that lightens the space under the roof. It is an idiosyncratic design that is a lot easier and more light compared to the normal suburban garage. Maybe there is a lesson to be learned here.

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