Parking behind oaks
BAM Civiel has used almost four hundred tree trunks as facade cladding for a car park for the Elkerliek Hospital near Eindhoven. The half-submerged car park is on three levels and has 520 parking places.
The Architecten aan de Maas firm of architects was asked by the hospital to blend the car park in with the surrounding natural environment as much as possible. The architect decided to use tree trunks combined with steel mesh for climbing plants to grow over.
The trunks range in thickness from 15 to 35 centimetres. The trees came from an oak wood that was being thinned out as part of a maintenance scheme.