Parkade Paradise

Curb Appeal

by Max Fawcett

Surely, this wasn’t what Canadian songstress Joni Mitchell had in mind when she penned “Big Yellow Taxi” over 40 years ago. Yet instead of paving paradise and putting up a parking lot, it appears that Vancouver artist Roderick Quin and the rest of the team behind the stunning new three-level parking structure at Calgary’s SAIT Polytechnic have managed to combine the two. The new structure, which features a green roof and a Louvre-inspired entrance, is an impressive blend of form and function, but its most eye-catching feature is the screen that acts as a giant canvas onto which a dynamic portrayal of the sky is represented. “It’s completely magical,” Quin says, “the way it just literally blends with the sky.” He believes that the project’s success is a reflection of the imperatives of our time. “These places, like parking lots and power stations and highway abutments and retaining walls, they necessarily have to be what they are, but they can be integrated in such a way that they’re nice to look at and environmentally sustainable. That, to me, is a beautiful thing.”

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