Urbanism & Infrastructure: II. Parking: C. The Garage: Details

Once the garage placement on the lot has been settled, and the spaces immediately around the garage have been studied for their social and technical performance, it remains to design the garage itself. Two aspects are discussed here. Some are essentially prosthetic or mitigating design strategies that help compensate for defects of placement. Others are good and useful whether or not the garage is optimally located and oriented. When it is unavoidable that a garage directly face the enfronting street ("front-loaded"), and it must have more than a single parking bay, then garage doors literally come to the fore as an issue. In a two-bay garage, having two separate garage door openings is much superior to one wider opening. First, the smaller opening proportion is closer to vertical, more like the windows on the house. The overall composition to which the ensemble of openings contributes is thereby more unified and harmonious. House and garage integrate better. Second, the doublewide garage door is both heavier and intrinsically more prone to racking, especially when it is on a motor-driven overhead track opener. CHANGING THE FOCUS Even when the garage has two separate doors, they may still be too dominant. (Merely making a doublewide garage door two single openings is insufficient to save the wholly unacceptable "snout house.") It is often necessary to add elements which refocus the center of attention, or which diminish the prominence of the doors and openings. A second-level balcony run across the width of two garage doors affords a miraculously effective distraction, for example. Recessing garage doors three to six feet behind the main front wall plane means they are swallowed in shadow. Both these techniques refocus the eye on the bearing, columnar portion of the facade and diminish the doors themselves. An extended porch or porte-cochère, through which a rear garage is accessed, absorbs habitual driveway parking and looks nice when cars are not present. Where front-loaded garage space is integrated into the body of the house, a rule of thumb is that the doors can be on the main facade as long as they do not occupy more than 25% of its total area. This works horizontally for freestanding houses and vertically for rowhouses, though it forces the former to be wide and the latter to be at least three stories tall. Whether it is freestanding or integrated, a garage’s windows should not be skimped. Ample daylight widens its social and technical flexibility. That flexibility is ultimately the most useful role of the American garage. It can be, in fact, the great American multipurpose room. Badly done, the garage is one more of the blights introduced by modernity. Properly done, it is a contribution to the good life.