Unallocated parking is sensitively incorporated into a landscaped square, to provide a distinctive place, and a flexible solution that can respond to changing parking demands.
Guidance
Housing squares provide a useful solution for the centre of larger development blocks creating an attractive sense of address for surrounding homes, by sensitively incorporating parking into a designed landscape.
The design of a parking squares should focus in the first instance on a landscape concept that provides an attractive and characterful space that include outdoor spaces for residents to meet and socialise. Parking should then be incorporated into the layout, rather than determine it.
Aim to incorporate trees and planting with sufficient height from installation, to structure the square and help conceal parked cars.
The layout of hard surfaces should seek to avoid directly defining conventional carriageway geometry and vehicle tracking, and instead support the landscape design concept.
Mountfield Park ( Proctor Matthews Architects) , Canterbury, illustrates how parking can be sensitively integrated into a high quality landscaped public space, without turning it into a large car park. High quality hard surfacing, extensive planting and semi-mature trees can help to create a sense of address for surrounding homes.