Car Park, Adamstown Central, Dublin

The car park at Adamstown Central has been designed to tackleproblems that motorists invariably encounter. Located underneath the new town centre podium, the 400m by 120m space could be disorientating. Our design strategy therefore has been to structure both the motorist and pedestrian’s journey, presenting this large expanse of space as a sequence of discrete experiences.

The car park is divided into Halls – the point of arrival in the car park for both motorists and pedestrians- and into Rooms – where motorists park their cars. Four Halls bisect the car park. Once parked their parking space, the visitor returns on foot to the Hall from which they can ascend variously by stair, lift, escalator or travelator to the podium above. The vertical circulation linking the car park to the podium level has been designed to aid wayfinding. At car park level, the stairs & lifts are located in or immediately adjacent to the four Halls. Each Hall corresponds with a public space or street up above – “Bridge”, “West”, “Central” and “East”.

At podium level the visitor looking to return to their vehicle must be able to recognise the family of stairs, lifts etc that give access to the car park below. This is done with the common use of materials. Lifts are surrounded in fret-cut metal panels and the stair enclosures are lined in the same fret-cut metal. The lift enclosures are steel-framed and glazed, the staircases are fairface insitu and precast concrete. Each stair or lift enclosure to the car park is a Lilliputian space or “building” in the Adamstown Central landscape..

The parking strategy uses space, material, structural expression, light and graphic design to create an environment which is easy to understand and to navigate, that is safe and one that integrates natural and artificial light, to create a pedestrian and motorist friendly environment.