http://www.nytimes.com/2007/01/21/realestate/21post2.html?_r=1&8dt&emc=dt&oref=slogin I love this. Drive car into elevator, raise elevator, drive into garage adjoining your New York high-rise. Now you can wake up in the middle of the a sleepless night and buff out any hairlines you noticed when you parked.
Stay with me. Go back to 1966 - I'm an auditor for garment retailer and I'm in the garment district in NYC for the first time. Get to the distribution center and my job is to track garments from the time they hit our warehouse until the time they are shipped to the stores. The first thing I see are our trucks backing into a loading dock. So, with out announcing anything to any one I go to the back of the truck (I am an auditor and the fact that no one knows I'm there- I'm ahead of the game.) All of a sudden I feel motion and, as I was to find out later our distribution center was on the 6th floor. Yup -thats the way it works in New York. That's the way all of the garment distributors worked. They actually backed trucks on to freight elevators to unload them on the 6th floor. Never mind unloading the garments on the 1st floor and shipping them up to the 6th floor. Now I find out it's an architectural marvel for $5M condos and guess what your car can be parked in your 6th floor condo- LOL, LOL, LOL
i must be missing something because i dont see how that protects from peering eyes anymore then say a garage that is sealed from the public with a normal elevator inside. Couldnt you just park then ride the elevator to your room. I mean i believe im thinking correctly. Still a cool idea.
Paparazzi queue up in the garages where celebs live. It's not easy to get from your car to elevator unharrassed.
Bullfighter - I guess my long winded point was that NYC was and always will be a f*cking joke to the rest of the world.
It looks pretty cool. I'd like to see a glass area(with retractable door) along the wall where your car is parked. That way you could eye the F-car whenever you felt like it.
As an architect (and car tragic) I find this very interesting but as RMDC says it's not really new - just about all Hong Kong's industry is in 'flatted' factories which have had these vehicle lifts forever. The lift shaft and garage area is a big chunk out of the floor plate which could otherwise be usable apartment area; interesting fire isolation problems as well I would have thought. In my spare time recently I've been doodling a dream home with the toys parked adjacent to the living room with an electricopaque glass wall between and floor level dropped for ultimate viewing angle; still playing with rotation angles 'cause I can never decide which view of my 308 I like best (straight side? 3/4 front? 3/4 rear?
I've been looking for a new house for a while, and the deal killer always seems to be the crappy garage. I'm surprised that in the United States, where cars are like pets, that you need to build a custom home to get anything more than a basic garage with a roof and a big ugly rolling door.
How long before some genious dies of CO poisioning because they run the car in the lift? I already sleep next to my Ferrari. Thanks, I'll keep my 3248-sq-ft house with 3 car garage (currently with 4 cars in it.) The paparazzi never bug me where I live.
Garages in newer homes are really small. Some are so narrow you can hardly open the car door without hitting something like your other car, for example. As you say, given our car-oriented culture its a bit hard to understand.
Come on Architect..... think out of the "box"... put the car on a turntable and enjoy all the views. OR, better yet, rotate the house around the car....lol
If I haven't seen it, it's new to me! In all seriousness, though, it is cool, and I don't think I've seen it applied to a residence before.
I remember a bit on Jackie Chan on Discovery or National Geographic. He's got an adapted factory in IIRC Hong Kong - he drove his car (Mitsu Evo) right into the living room Loved the idea.
I've been getting the strangest looks from realtors around here when I tell them I want a 1 bedroom house with a 6 car garage.