car connections from Kyoto

In A pattern language: towns, buildings, construction (1977), Alexander, Ishikawa, Silverstein et al., wrote of the car connection:

The process of arriving in a house, and leaving it, is fundamental to our daily lives; and very often it involves a car. But the place where cars connect to houses, far from being important and beautiful, is often off to one side and neglected.

They suggested:
Place the parking place for the car and the main entrance, in such a relation to each other, that the shortest route from the parked car into the house, both to the kitchen and to the living rooms, is always through the main entrance. Make the parking place for the car into an actual room which makes a positive and graceful place where the car stands, not just a gap in the terrain.

However, not everyone has the chance to design a house and where their car would dwell from scratch. Instead, there is a plethora of small modifications to existing infrastructure, to aid the process of arriving and leaving a house. Here is a selection from Kyoto, April 2016.

 

Mirrors for seeing from multiple angles simultaneously

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reflectors to ease tricky corners
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gardens, edges for other life forms

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handmade screen protects blooming freesias on the end of a public parking lot

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sand and grass garden with an exquisite selection of plants: iris, rose, pine, camelia, mistletoe

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a pleasant outdoor room made by grape vines

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bonsai garden on the edge of a parking space, makes a wonderful alley to walk through too

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