Going underground: this subterranean car park in Graz goes against type to civilise urban parking.

Underground garages are a territory lost to architecture. Usually dark, damp and stained, with imagined muggers lurking in the shadows, they are claustrophobic places to escape from as fast as possible. You hold your nose as you enter the lift, and wonder if your car will be there when you return. Fabric and lighting are the meanest possible, the ceiling height is low, and you have to unravel a mental Ariadne's thread to assure your return. Because vehicle movement is the priority and people park in different places, passage from the car is hard to control or to celebrate in any way, and a sense of arrival is difficult to achieve. The brilliantly inventive Michael Szyszkowitz and Karla Kowalski have long been architects to the department store Kastner and Ohler in the centre of Graz, converting their old buildings and adding new ones (AR June 1995). To compete with out-of-town shopping, the store decided to woo customers with parking, and this could only be placed next to the river-bank under some ancient listed buildings, accessed from the bank-side traffic artery. Creating the five-storey basement with the old buildings in place was a structural headstand, for they had to be propped on temporary columns until the new structure was in place. There were also problems with water from the River Mur, and anchors were needed to prevent the whole structure rising out of the ground like a boat.

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These technicalities solved, the architects set about making the garage pleasant and easy to use. Floors are sloping plates to allow continuous progression until a place is found, and to create a split section which is less box-like. On returning, you can drive off quickly via a dramatic spiral ramp set on one side and linked to each level. Those leaving their cars are drawn towards lifts and stairs in toplit voids behind glass walls, which appear invitingly like courtyards on the edge of the space. Very thick glass was needed to achieve fire regulations, but the transparency is fully effective. Glazed lifts make passage through the floors apparent, and you arrive between the store and external pavement with a clear sense of direction. Surfaces in the parking floors are painted in bright colours and kept clean with impervious finishes. Car bays are defined with blocks of colour rather than the usual bossy lines. Lamps are integrated into the ceiling and into the columns, bouncing light off the floor and the ceiling, and video cameras provide discreet security. It all seems much more of an interior than parking places usually are, and the cars look as if they are in a showroom.

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