June 15, 2018

Coolest garage? Seattle's Sinking Ship is nominated

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Seattle's most notorious garage, the Sinking Ship, made the top-10 list of the world's coolest garages.

Images provided by Looking4Parking.com [enlarge]

Garagenatelier is an “exclusive” spot for cars, built into a Swiss mountainside.

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Al Jahra Court in Kuwait holds the Guinness world record for the largest automated parking facility.

Is the triangular “Sinking Ship” in Pioneer Square one of the world's coolest parking garages?

A London-based architecture and design website seems to think so.

DesignCurial teamed up with the British airport parking site Looking4.com to name the world's coolest car park for 2018, and Seattle's most notorious garage made the top-10 list.

“The unique shape of this multi-storey car park, with decks sloping in the opposite direction to the hill, gives it the name ‘Sinking Ship,'” the write-up says.

It continues: “The four-floor garage was part of a neighbourhood redesign in the '60s, standing in front of the Smith Tower and former Seattle Hotel.”

Never mind that the garage actually replaced that ornate 1890 hotel. Left unsaid is how outrage over the new garage sparked a preservation movement that led to Pioneer Square becoming a national historic district in 1970.

Oh, well.

The Sinking Ship is the only U.S. garage on the list, by the way. The other structures are in Europe, plus one each from Australia and Kuwait.

Two of the more interesting garages is Garagenatelier, an “exclusive” structure built into a Swiss mountainside. Eight glass-and-concrete cubes poke out of the slope, serving as art pieces as well as a place to leave your Aston Martin before setting off on your skis.

At the other end of the spectrum, the 2,314-space Al Jahra Court in Kuwait owns the Guinness world record for the largest automated parking facility. The bays were designed by Robotic Parking Systems of Clearwater, Florida. Cars in the structure can be retrieved in less than three minutes.

Looking4.com is holding a contest to choose which of the 10 garages will be declared the world's coolest. You cast a vote by July 8 at http://bit.ly/2JCeMN8.