Green

Car Parks

Car parks, from a certain point of view, are interesting places. When the car park is empty people will in general fill the spaces allocated to them, disabled parking is largely left empty, mother and toddler bays contain the requisite MPVs, everyone obeys the ‘rules’. As the car park fills and space becomes a premium the disable spaces get taken by people who have no permit to do so, mother and toddler bays include the odd Mini and the ‘rules’ are bent and then broken. If the car park allows people to enter past the actual capacity you find cars parked on the verge, in the middle of cul-de-sac’s and in some cases entirely blocking throughways.

The rules of the car park, park your car only in the allocated bay, are finally broken to the point of making the car park no longer function as a design. Cars are parked but they can no longer get in or out easily; yet at no stage did anyone break a major rule as it appeared to them, each stage was a slight bending of the rules as they percieved them at the time. Neccessity pushes the later cars drivers to find more space in the car park — where they to park in the middle of a throughway in an empty car park this would be percieved as a major rule breaking, in a full car park it’s merely being practical.

It’s these little steps in bending then breaking the laws of a system that bring about ruin, it’s something I’ve seen in organisations as well as car parks but the car park makes a nice illustration.

Of course I could just be talking out of my ass.

«1 CommentsJanuary 19, MMVI»

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