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Generative Design for Parking Garages

written by
Clifton Harness

Why build generative design for parking garages? What do we build most in this world? Parking... What do we hate most in this world? Parking... How many stalls have you counted in the last 30 days? Too many.

Ugh

Parking can be 20% to 70% (by area) of any project that is built. It's almost shameful when half of your project is parking, but here we are as a culture--there are 8 parking stalls for every 1 car in this country. Parking is a basic need for any building to be successful--so we design it, build it, and tolerate it. The more efficient the parking solution, the better. This means attempting rectangular garages, parking on ramps, and a stall average south of 400 square feet per stall.

Basic Parking Garage Parameters

  1. Stall Depth - We default to 18' (we are based in Texas, after all)
  2. Stall Width - We default to 9' (see reason above)
  3. Drive Aisle Width - We default to 24' (trucks are large)
  4. Max Ramp Slope - We default to 6%
  5. Building code in all of its glory mandates a maximum of 6.66% slope (15 feet of run for every foot of fall). This limits your ability to squeeze stalls, but for a good reason (the guys writing the code were thinking about people in wheelchairs?).

Basic Parking Garage Objectives

  1. Draw the stalls given the user's inputs
  2. 95% of the garage drawn (in milliseconds)
  3. What bay configuration yields the most parking stalls
  4. What ramp location kills the fewest stalls
  5. Fill any irregular shape with parking

The TestFit Generative Design for Parking Solution

These features are now live within the main TestFit app. For future features to do with parking? We are considering speed ramps, spaces within the garage, entry and exit locations, angled parking, and directional routing. Our intent is to give the industry a tool to solve 80% of garages, and do it in milliseconds.

Reduce Risk.
Increase Potential.

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