Using Good Design To Reduce The Impact Of Parking

"The best way to get your parking out of sight is - well - to put it out of sight. The parking for YMCA Villa Nueva, a San Jose, California project for singles, families, and hostel guests with very low incomes, is underground. Parking still enters from the street, but this level of the building was given its own material to clearly distinguish the upper residential floors from the parking and other public uses that occupy the base of the building.

...But what if your only option is on-grade parking? One good strategy for reducing the overall impact is to group the parking in lots that are not visually in front of the house but are still easy to access. By choosing this approach, the design team for The Farm in Soquel, California, which contains a mixture of building types for both rental and purchase by families with very low to low incomes, was able to minimize the impact of parking on the experience of living here. See how it allows the residents to have front doors on open space in the center of the development."

Thanks to John Hooker via Profession of New Urbanism Listserv