ParkingPLUS Design Honored
“We hope that this recognition will inspire further creative thinking around parking garages and the extraordinary opportunity that they offer to provide community amenities and compelling design in addition to their fundamental purpose.”
The New York State chapter of the American Institute of Architects (AIA) has honored LTL Architects with a Citation for Urban Planning/Design for the firm’s Train Terraces design for the Village of Westbury. The Citation was recently announced as part of the AIA New York State Design Awards, which recognize outstanding works of design by architects based in New York State.
The design emerged from the Long Island Index’s ParkingPLUS Design Challenge, which conducted a national search for architects to contribute transformative thinking about parking structures in suburban downtowns. The Challenge paired each of four selected firms with a participating Long Island community to envision the potential of a particular transit-oriented site. LTL Architects, based in New York City, was paired with the Village of Westbury.
The ParkingPLUS Design Challenge revealed new concepts of parking design that incorporate needed local amenities and make parking facilities an architectural attraction for downtown areas. Over an intense, six-week, design period, the architects were challenged to explore the premise that good design of public facilities – in this case “boring” parking garages – can be economically, environmentally and socially transformative to their settings. They were also asked to envision “PLUSes” – additional uses that would enliven these structures, provide amenities for their respective locations and suggest potential financing strategies for maintenance and operation of parking.
In its Train Terraces design, LTL Architects proposed, on two lots flanking the elevated train station platform, urban incubators for sustainable architecture in the form of elegantly designed, mixed-use, infill projects with multiple terraces that bridge over, under and along the tracks, continuing their award-winning design investigations into “new suburbanism.”
As Nancy Rauch Douzinas, President of the Rauch Foundation, publisher of the Long Island Index, said when the honor was announced,
“We hope that this recognition will inspire further creative thinking around parking garages and the extraordinary opportunity that they offer to provide community amenities and compelling design in addition to their fundamental purpose.”
LTL Architects did a superb – and now award-winning – job of envisioning and illuminating the remarkable potential of the Westbury site. Their design continues to spark discussion and to enliven the possibilities for parking garages of the future.