What’s your local car park like? A 1960s concrete multi-storey horror block with poorly-lit and unsavoury-smelling stairwells? A drab city wasteland that never got built on, possibly because of fears of unearthing unexploded WWII bombs (like my former London workplace car park)? Or just anywhere you have to pay for parking and fear a fine for returning one minute after your ticket expires? If those examples seem like the majority, it’s good to know there are actually some better ones out there too. Airbnb-style car-sharing platform Hiyacar teamed up with the Your Parking Space app that aims to help easily find and pay for parking spaces, to reveal the most unusual car parks in the United Kingdom. Out of the resulting Top Ten YesAuto declares its favourite five (with Hiyacar rankings in brackets)…
Millennium Point, Birmingham (no.4)
Architect Mark Sloane’s Millennium Point car park in Birmingham opened in 2013 and makes this list in large part due to its geometric facade including blue acrylic panels that create a mysteriously alluring glow at night time. Spooky, but in a good way.
“The Cheese Grater” Sheffield (no.1)
Topping the Hiyacar list is the Allies and Morrison-designed Charles Street car park in Sheffield. Completed in 2008, the ten-storey building offers shops at ground floor level and 520 parking spaces above, but its most interesting feature is the facade made up of (seemingly) randomly arranged panels of aluminium rotated in one of four orientations to catch the light and also create a cool textured exterior. No wonder its nickname is “The Cheese Grater”.
Castle Car Park, York (no.2)
Want culture with your car parking? Then the Castle Car park in the historic city of York should hit the spot. The open-air parking area is overlooked by the largest remaining part of York Castle and was voted the UK’s second most unusual. Car parks with castle turrets are pretty cool in our book too.
Duncansby Head, John o’Groats, Scotland (no.5)
If solitude, reflection and a stronger likelihood of finding a parking spot appeal, look no further than Duncansby Head in John o’Groats, at the most northern tip of Scotland – but preferably out of road trip tourist season. Why? The tiny Scottish location is famous for being one end of the longest possible land-based journey in Great Britain – the other being Land’s End in south-western Cornwall. If you do go, it's probably best to avoid pointless opening conversational gambits like, “Have you come far?” It will only lead to trouble or boredom (or both).
Moor Street, Birmingham (no.7)
Although only placing seventh in this survey’s Top Ten most unusual UK car parks, the space-age venue on the corner of Moor and Park Street in Birmingham is surely the coolest. Designed by Future Systems architects and clad in 15,000 aluminium discs, it won the RIBA award for architecture in 2004 and also houses the world-famous department store Selfridges that opened its branch in the revamped Bull Ring area back in 2003. Don't go for an Insta moment just now though, unless you like the work of local fashion designer Osman Yousefzada who has created a wrap to cover the building while those discs – some of which have lost their shine or gone missing – get a polish and revamp in time for the 2022 Commonwealth Games.
To see the full Top Ten list and their locations why not click through to this useful infographic – https://www.hiyacar.co.uk/blog/10-most-unusual-car-parks/infographic
Keyword: Cool car parks: celebrating an unloved architectural necessity