Eco Factor: Sustainable development to convert parking lots into urban forests.
As the auto industry is struggling, concrete-covered expanses where car dealerships used to thrive have been converted into desolate wastelands. In California, a mile-long corridor known as the Brand Boulevard of Cars consumes over 33 acres for the exhibition, storage and maintenance of new and used cars. Osborn Architects is proposing to face-lift this prime real estate by converting it into an energy generating urban forest.
The surfaces of the asphalt lots, territorial fences and warehouses are being imagined to be covered with productive skins that generate energy with solar and piezoelectric layers. The urban forest will also sequester carbon to filter pollutants and store water as well. This area would also be embedded with a new system of mobility options, turning the boulevard from a parking lot into a green transit corridor connecting north to south.
Via: Inhabitat
