Utrecht Bike Parking by Ector Hoogstad Architects #utrechtarchitecture

The world’s largest underground bike parking — right under Utrecht’s train station. Designed by Ector Hoogstad Architects, this 12,500-space facility is more than storage — it’s a cathedral for cyclists. Smooth timber curves, intuitive wayfinding, and direct links to the platforms make arriving by bike feel effortless (and a little glamorous). Would you park your bike here?

#archimarathonnetherlands #archimarathon #utrecht

Kevin Huey, Andrew Maynard. We’re off to Rotterdam today. That’s why we got bags on. But currently, we’re in Utre in their amazing new bike parking storage by Hector Hoostad Architects. We’ve got these stairs that go down. Uhhuh. With glass roofs, so they let lots of natural light through. Deep underground. Oh, and then there’s skylights around the columns. Yeah. So, these are the columns that they’re 1.2 2 m wide here, but as they go down, they turn into this big I don’t know, it’s like the base of a tree. 5 m wide down at the bottom. Totally skatable. Natural light, far less cars, which is a better urban outcome. But also what it means is you are reducing the carbon of the city just by getting rid of cars and making people use bikes by they estimate 95% less carbon. Look, you can see the base of one of these towers. If you come here, just remember that red means bike and they will not stop. The key part of the brief was fast and safe. So the idea is it’s not leisurely riding a bike. This is how people are getting around dayto-day, you know, morning and evening. So they want to get people to bike places really quickly. And they’ve got this chip system similar to getting on and off a train where as soon as you say, “I’m here.” It’ll tell you what’s the most convenient bike park for you and what’s free. We’ve come on a Sunday morning, so we’re not seeing the chaos that usually happens 9 to5. You can see that they’re pre-cast elements, but even thought about the underside of the stair. There’s something about this. Maybe it’s just cuz we’re in a medieval city. There’s something about this that feels medieval. You know what I mean? going some of these bars underground. And then from here, the bottom level, you can see all the way to that canopy that covers the main square. So this is the bottom level. From here, you can go straight into the train station as well. So it’s really well connected with the lower levels of the train station. Bikes, bikes, and more bikes. And you can see here, it’s like um it’s like many car parks where there actually tells you how many bays are available at the two different levels. Have you noticed the texture of the concrete? It goes from board work to smooth and then to recess for the lights. For those that haven’t seen the double deckers before, they’re really easy to use. Plunk it in. Back tire goes in there. It’s actually spring loaded so it helps lift itself. Plug it on there. Slide it through. You reckon these are for acoustic reasons? Yeah, it’s sort of squish. Yeah, you can see that it’s acoustic fabric behind and then just timber. Plenty of rental bikes that are actually part of the train network. Hector hoostat smooth hookat smooth. We’re gonna get emails saying complaining that’s not how we use our phone. Yeah. Is it to steal or to stall or to stell? Oh, let’s do a debate about it again. Stop.