Danube vert car park

An eco-neighbourhood is emerging on a brownfield site on the outskirts of Strasbourg. At its eastern entrance, COSA is responsible for the coordination of the Block I project and for supporting DEA architectes and Denu & Paradon architecture in the design of the apartment buildings. COSA is also developing a mixed-use residential and office building, a 340-space overground car park and the central area of the block.

To protect the block from the impact of traffic, the car park structure forms a barrier on the busiest intersection.

The building embodies the new urban priorities for the handling of the car: the dynamic sharing of parking spaces between visitors, day residents (workers) and night residents (inhabitants) made possible by the emergence of the “smart city”.

The car park building plays its role as a cog in the workings of a hidden mechanism whereby spatial planning is unavoidably and irremediably conceived in terms of the private car. Its architecture is a frugal interweave of steel-faced concrete enhanced with glass. The interplay of reflections, the beauty of the obsessively repeated pattern of ironwork assemblages, imbue this building, despite its purely functional character with a marked identity.