Design
Columbus Tries to Improve the Parking Experience With Weird Architecture
“Bold Booths” inject art into the city and try to make the job of parking attendant a little brighter.
You have to feel for parking attendants, stuck in that cramped box, often without decent A/C, dealing with impatient motorists all dang day. It makes you wonder: Would their lives be improved if instead of a booth they worked inside a green, airy, biomorphic entity known as “The Slug”?
Actually, that would be an extremely weird thing to wonder. Yet Columbus, Ohio, has it on the brain with an ongoing project known as “Bold Booths.” Using grant money from Ohio State University, professors and architects are designing permanent booths for parking attendants that, they say, “produce transformative urban experiences.” The first went up this summer outside a Westin hotel, and at least three more are planned for 2015.