In the 20′s an English comic imagined a very laughable thing about this time: a hotel for cars, he drew a car park several floors. [5]

Design

The movement of vehicles between floors can be made by:

* Interior ramps – the most common type
* Exterior ramps – which may take the form of a circular ramp (colloquially known as “whirley-gig” in Latin)
* Vehicle lifts – the least possible common

In locations where the car park is built on sloping land, the car park can be split-level.

Many car parks are independent buildings devoted exclusively to that use. Charges for calculation of car parks are often less than the office building they serve (50 psf psf against 80), leading to long floor spans of 55-60 feet that allow cars to park in rows without the support columns in the meantime. The most common structural systems of the United States for these structures are either prestressed concrete floor systems, concrete double tee concrete systems or cast-in-place post-tensioned floor. Recently, car parks built to serve some of the business and residential properties are built as part of a larger building, and are often built underground as part of basement.

Car parks serving shopping centers can sometimes be built adjacent to the shopping center to make easier access on each floor between shops and parking. One example is the Mall of America in Bloomington, Minnesota, USA, which has two large car parks joined the building in the eastern and western ends of the mall. Another common position for the car parks within shopping centers in the United Kingdom is on the roof, around the various utility systems, enabling customers to take lifts straight down in the center. Examples of these are Oracle in Reading and Festival Place in Basingstoke.