Parking: The Garage

New Urban News Technical Page by Andres Duany, Michael Morrissey, and Patrick Pinnell

Judged by numbers and ubiquity, the garage is the most successful new building type of the twentieth century. Houses prior to the rise of the automobile often trailed a variety of sheds behind them, but seldom did any of them have the size and functional complexity characteristic of the contemporary garage.

It is a mistake to think of a garage only as a place for storing motor vehicles. With an auxiliary living unit above, it can contribute to the house-hold’s economy, or to a family’s ability to shelter a wider variety of its members flexibly. The garage itself sometimes serves as an auxiliary living room, business start-up space, or workshop. Because of its multiple potential roles, the garage can be as important as any single room of the main house except the kitchen.