Parking spots are not very big. Sometimes it's difficult to park a large car in a parking spot. Despite that seemingly important obstacle, housing designers are looking at how to create housing to take advantage of the large quantities of unused parking space nationwide.
CASAGRANDE Laboratory has unveiled a prototype micro apartment in Helsinki that fits into a single parking space - measuring just 2.5 by 5 metres.
Named Tikku, meaning “stick” in Finnish, the structure was unveiled during this year’s Helsinki Design Week. It was constructed using prefabricated cross-laminated timber (CLT) elements and comprises two storeys with an enclosed greenhouse on top that serves as a roof terrace.
The proposal envisages several of these dwellings being assembled on under-used parking lots.
According to the architects from Casagrande Laboratory, Tikku “will offer privacy, safety and comfort…[and] the rest of the functions can be found in the surrounding city.”
This means that additional modules, such as saunas, kitchens and others, would be added adjacent to the micro-houses and shared between groups of inhabitants.
