Europe’s largest automated car parking system at DOKK1 in Aarhus
Efficient and space saving automated parking for close to 1000 cars with retrieval times under two minutes.
In 2015, Lödige Industries delivered an automated parking system for the DOKK1 building in Aarhus. Schmidt Hammer Lassen, an international architectural firm, designed the building. More than 1,000,000 cars have been parked here since 2015. The car parking system in DOKK1 in Aarhus (Urban Mediaspace Aarhus) is Europe's largest automatic car park.
DOKK1 is the central element of the project for the transformation of Aarhus’ inner harbour from an industrial into an urban area. The new waterfront areas are now an important link between the city centre and the Baltic Sea. The heart of the new building is a new library – Scandinavia’s largest and most modern library. In addition, DOKK1 incorporates a café, co-working spaces, playground and much more.
Watch our video about the automated parking system in DOKK1
Built to attract the public, one major issue was offering enough car parking spaces. Given space restrictions and the building location adjacent to the harbour wall, conventional parking was not feasible. Lödige’s space-saving system offers close to 1,000 parking spaces spread across four levels below the building. The CUBILE technology, used in DOKK1, requires a minimal amount of space and enabled an additional 40% more spaces.
Creating a large number of parking spaces in a city centre location can create a host of problems with queues for public parking and retrieval being the most obvious ones. The system installed at DOKK1 can handle an average of 235 cars per hour. The key benefit for customers is that they no longer need to waste time in searching for a parking spot and driving around a possibly dark parking facility. The parking cabins are designed to suit the architecture of the building with glass walls and bright lighting enhancing security and user-friendlyness of the parking facility.
Undoubtedly, the importance of climate change is growing and was a key consideration for our client when the building was first conceptualised. Not only did they want to free urban living spaces, reducing emissions and fumes from cars waiting to park were other factors that led them to select an automated parking facility. As the search for a space and queueing are eliminated, emissions are sharply reduced.
The automated parking system at DOKK1 has a high reliability and availability thanks to 24/7 service from the Lödige Customer Care Centre in Paderborn. Occuring errors can be solved remotly and therefore 99% of all error cases are being solved without the customer even noticing. In addition to that, our Lödige technician team is always on site to ensure availability of the system.
About the customer
Realdania is a philanthropic association with more than 149,000 members. The association seeks to improve quality of life through the built environment, defined as the physical settings for our everyday life. Realdania is focused on both current and future generations and seeks to promote sustainability and generate new knowledge and innovation. Since 2000, Realdania has supported more than 3,200 projects with a total of DKK 17 billion. Anyone in Denmark who owns real estate can become a member.
Facts and figures
Place:
Aarhus, Denmark
Completion date:
2015
Use:
Public car park
Capacity:
972 cars
Technology:
CUBILE
Number of levels:
3 (underground)
Time to park a car:
40 - 60 sec per car
Retrieval time:
below 200 sec per car
Challenges of parking in Aarhus
- In Aarhus, Denmark’s second largest metropolitan area with over 340,000 inhabitants, the port area had declined, and the goal was to tie the city and the water closer together. This led to significant space restrictions.
- DOKK1 was built to attract the public. With space restrictions at Aarhus’ waterfront, another major challenge was to provide enough car parking spaces.
- Given space restrictions and the building location adjacent to the harbour wall, conventional parking was not feasible.
- Moreover, Realdania’s aim as developer was to create quality of life for all through the built environment at DOKK1.
- Undoubtedly, the importance of climate change is growing and was a key consideration for our client when the building was first conceptualised, as the parking process cause climate damaging fume.
Solution and benefits
- Higher packing density comparing to traditional car parks indicates substantially less use of space, since the absence of ramps, drivers and passengers in the facility means cars can be stored much closer to each other.
- In addition, the algorithms of Lödige Industries’ proprietary management software, categorising cars by size, ensures cars are parked in the best i.e. most efficient possible space given current levels of usage and retrieval patterns.
- Our CUBILE automated parking technology features a flat transport robot for cars, rather than pallets that are traditionally used as carrier units. Due to the fast and precise operation of the robot, it enables the conception of larger automated car parking systems, exceeding common automated car parks with maximum 300 spaces.
- Our automated car parking system left significant room for services as urban living areas or cafes in addition to the library incorporated in DOKK1.
- The automated, pallet-free system offers the required amount of close to 1,000 parking spaces, spread across three floors below the new building.
- Comfortable and time-saving parking with an average parking procedure and return time of 60-120 seconds is provided.
- The reliability and availability of the automated parking system at DOKK1 is ensured by the on 24/7 service from the Lödige Customer Care Centre in Paderborn.
- Occuring errors can be solved via remote and therefore 99% of all error cases are being solved without the customer noticing.
- Moreover, the Lödige staff and maintenance technicians are always on hand to ensure the availability of the system.
- Realdania wanted to reduce emissions and fumes from cars waiting to park. As the parking process is executed automatically, the search for a space and queueing are eliminated and emissions are sharply reduced.
“Our ambition was to provide a parking solution that will set new standards of parking comfort by rethinking the process from the user angle, and which by the rational use of space will make more room for the life of the city. The automated parking facility Lödige Industries has built for us echoes this and continues to deliver on this day in and out."
- Peter Kjølby, COO at Realdania By Byg.