drivearchitecture

Competition entry for a free standing residential garage for up to three cars with the criteria that the solution expresses a technological advance in the storage or maintenance of the cars inside. The contest was sponsored by a major lifestyle magazine and auto company.

We took exception with the concept of a competition that essentially promotes devoting more energy to the car, consequently our 10 hour investment in our entry looks and reads like this…

“The concept of this prototype garage addresses the cultural and technological issues facing humanity as we attempt to overcome the environmental and social pressures of our unsustainable population growth and unrestrained consumerism.

The structural system of this modular building is a column grid of reclaimed 4×4 wood posts, corners of reinforced reclaimed concrete block and a roof made of recailmed steel and reclaimed wood joists and decking. The floor is constructed of reclaimed paver brick. The architectural components include:

Re-purposed wood pallets (according to the USDA Forest Service 38% of the county’s hardwood lumber is used in pallet manufacturing – in North Carolina alone over 300,000 tons of pallet waste ends up in landfills – and nationally represents 2-3% of all municipal landfill waste) re-purposed auto windshields (according the Auto Channel web site automobile windshields are one of the most difficult car parts to recycle) These are fashioned together to make a repeatable modular unit. The door is an exception to the modularity of the building in that the wind/rain screen glass is attached on a roller system allowing the glass to fold up and down with the door making the wall appear exactly like the other three when the door is closed.

The technological components of this building are advanced thin film photovoltaic collectors applied to the appropriate wind/rain screen elements of the building in conjunction with a roof mounted wind turbine, and a vegetative roof surface. The energy produced by the collectors and turbine is sent back to the grid. It should be noted that this building is not heated or cooled or even designed to be water tight. More than anything, it’s intended to provide secure storage and produce power to charge 2 electric cars and, potentially, offset some of the embodied energy utilized in the construction of the garage and the manufacture of the cars themselves.

Basic assumptions underlying this scheme:

The automobile, like a small handful of other inventions, has had an overwhelming impact on humanity; from how and where we live to how we in US define our unique American culture. Even personal fulfillment and how we identify ourselves as individuals is connected with the culture of the car. While the benefits of mobility are obvious the impact of this connection has been a disaster for our built and natural environments, and has left us, for the most part, wanting.

Our cultural and individual identity needs to be reset in a way that supports a different relationship with the things we buy, including and, in particular, the automobile. Only when an educated consumer understands the staggering hidden costs associated with building, operating, maintaining, supporting and disposing of a car will technological innovation happen where it belongs – to the car itself. Anything provided after the fact is an exercise in futility… in other words a net-zero energy garage is a joke if there’s a need to park a Hummer inside.”

Magritte's Garage