Comments on: The Eureka Tower Carpark

The Eureka Tower Carpark

nthdegx — Sun, 07 Sep 2008 15:19:12 -0800

The Eureka Tower Carpark in Melbourne makes makes great use of forced perspective for its way-finding system, designed by Axel Peemoeller.

By: stifford

stifford — Sun, 07 Sep 2008 15:32:34 -0800

"Don't park there if you are going to be trippin' out at the show, brah..."

By: Venadium

Venadium — Sun, 07 Sep 2008 15:45:58 -0800

This is pretty cool and all but I think I'd be pretty annoyed if I could only find my way around by standing in certain spots and looking in certain directions. But then again I don't find myself getting lost in carparks all that often so maybe it really isn't that big a problem..

By: Brockles

Brockles — Sun, 07 Sep 2008 15:49:12 -0800

As long as the flow of traffic follows the intended 'viewed from' aspect of the paintings, then it's great. If that hasn't been very much thought out, then this is arty shite that will just annoy people. From the pictures it looks like the first one, though.

By: pompomtom

pompomtom — Sun, 07 Sep 2008 15:52:28 -0800

Nifty, but 'up' and 'down' are concepts I can usually work out without award-winning design.

By: pompomtom

pompomtom — Sun, 07 Sep 2008 15:52:45 -0800

(and at those times I can't, I probably shouldn't be driving)

By: effbot

effbot — Sun, 07 Sep 2008 16:02:46 -0800

"Nifty, but 'up' and 'down' are concepts I can usually work out without award-winning design." When driving around inside a carpark, distinguishing between "you can use this to go up" and "those above you will use this to go down" might not be quite as simple as you think, though. And the difference can be rather important.

By: mandal

mandal — Sun, 07 Sep 2008 16:10:37 -0800

It's such a good idea given how tight the turns are in lots of multi-storey car parks, so much better to have a huge sign pop up into your natural field of view that having to scan the walls and floor for small signs while navigating all the turns. Also - I guess it totally adds to the warp factor delusion if you're giving it a bit of speed. Wikipedia on forced perspective.

By: Drab_Parts

Drab_Parts — Sun, 07 Sep 2008 16:46:21 -0800

I think this an example of anamorphosis rather than forced perspective. Definitely an example of cool, though.

By: DU

DU — Sun, 07 Sep 2008 17:53:01 -0800

This is all kinds of helpful. In tight spaces it's often hard to tell what direction a sign is supposed to be read from so you never know if it applies to you or not.

By: game warden to the events rhino

game warden to the events rhino — Sun, 07 Sep 2008 17:56:29 -0800

Clever, and fun to look at. But what freaks me out about this is that it creates the illusion of continuous surfaces where none exist (especially that IN sign), and I just kind of think that when driving is involved, confusing people about what is a wall and what is a space they can drive through is probably a really bad idea.

By: ChickenringNYC

ChickenringNYC — Sun, 07 Sep 2008 18:04:00 -0800

They need to post a video from the driver's POV so we can see how it looks to see it "focus" and "unfocus" as we drive past.

By: danman_d

danman_d — Sun, 07 Sep 2008 18:12:37 -0800

This is very cool... if you speak English. Couldn't he have done anamorphic arrows?

By: Wolof

Wolof — Sun, 07 Sep 2008 18:39:10 -0800

I think this an example of anamorphosis [wp] rather than forced perspective. I concur.

By: grobstein

grobstein — Sun, 07 Sep 2008 19:20:05 -0800

This highlights a tremendous failure of the graffiti-artist imagination. Think of what those supposed visionaries could do if they knew about forced perspective!

By: The Straightener

The Straightener — Sun, 07 Sep 2008 19:39:15 -0800

They should have put ACID in there somewhere just to like totally fuck with that one guy.

By: Solon and Thanks

Solon and Thanks — Sun, 07 Sep 2008 20:03:17 -0800

Good point, game warden to the events rhino... it's a cool concept but probably not the place to be playing around with visual trickery.

By: five fresh fish

five fresh fish — Sun, 07 Sep 2008 20:47:10 -0800

I kind of like signs I can read without having to be in exactly the right place. 'cause, y'know, it makes it way easier to figure out how to get to the right place. Maybe that's my own shortcoming.

By: longsleeves

longsleeves — Sun, 07 Sep 2008 22:12:26 -0800

re: the first image - what does "JF UT" mean, exactly? Seriously, though... A conventional sign can be read from many angles, rather than from just one. Are parking garages in Melbourne with conventional signage plagued by constant head-on collisions? Are hopelessly lost drivers dying of thirst while searching for the way out?

By: nthdegx

nthdegx — Sun, 07 Sep 2008 22:34:23 -0800

Thanks, Drab_parts.

By: Ritchie

Ritchie — Sun, 07 Sep 2008 23:10:59 -0800

Seriously, though... A conventional sign can be read from many angles, rather than from just one. Are parking garages in Melbourne with conventional signage plagued by constant head-on collisions? Are hopelessly lost drivers dying of thirst while searching for the way out? I think the answer can be found in the different behaviors exhibited by drivers familiar with the layout of the parking garage versus drivers who are unfamiliar with the layout. The driver who has been there before tends to move from floor to floor with a minimum of delays - gently accelerating from one ramp to the next, and so on - because the locations of the entries and exits are all familiar to him or her. The unfamiliar driver proceeds much more cautiously. He or she is constantly looking for Exit signs, arrows painted on the walls or floors. This might seem to be a much safer way to proceed, but I suspect it actually isn't: these drivers are so focused on navigational cues that they become blind to pedestrians, cars pulling out, and so on. If the car park is a very large one, with widely-separated ramps, it's much easier to navigate the garage if as soon as you leave one ramp you can see exactly where the next ramp is. My guess is that these signs are deliberately huge for that reason - so that they can be seen from one end of the floor to the other. The problem of the sign only being fully legible from a particular angle could actually be regarded as a feature - if you're driving through this garage and a sign looks skewed to you, it's probably not meant for you, and you can disregard it.

By: subgear

subgear — Sun, 07 Sep 2008 23:37:52 -0800

My wife's got these very signs tattooed on her body, and I think they're great. I hardly make any mistakes at sexy time anymore.

By: crossoverman

crossoverman — Sun, 07 Sep 2008 23:53:12 -0800

My wife's got these very signs tattooed on her body, and I think they're great. I hardly make any mistakes at sexy time anymore. I particularly like her "Wrong Way - Go Back" sign.

By: pracowity

pracowity — Mon, 08 Sep 2008 00:14:27 -0800

I'm sure some bastard tagger will come along and spray the walls with a large cock that can only properly be seen from the attendant's window. (I mean in the parking garage, not anything to do with the real or imagined wife mentioned above.)

By: longsleeves

longsleeves — Mon, 08 Sep 2008 01:09:27 -0800

The unfamiliar driver proceeds much more cautiously. He or she is constantly looking for Exit signs, arrows painted on the walls or floors. This might seem to be a much safer way to proceed, but I suspect it actually isn't: these drivers are so focused on navigational cues that they become blind to pedestrians, cars pulling out, and so on. So lets mess with the perception of drivers who are unfamiliar and make three dimensional interior spaces appear to be flat surfaces? What if a stray pedestrian materializes out of the middle of a giant blue "W" ? if you're driving through this garage and a sign looks skewed to you, it's probably not meant for you, and you can disregard it. How is that better than being able to read the sign and being sure that's not the way you need to go?

By: Ritchie

Ritchie — Mon, 08 Sep 2008 01:37:56 -0800

So lets mess with the perception of drivers who are unfamiliar and make three dimensional interior spaces appear to be flat surfaces? What if a stray pedestrian materializes out of the middle of a giant blue "W" ? Well, I don't think it quite works that way. I'm just theorizing here, but it seems more likely that the driver notes the direction he or she needs to go, and then switches their attention to things like other cars, pedestrians, runaway elephants, etc, on the way there. i.e. once they see the anamorphic sign and digest it's meaning, they no longer need to fixate on it, so the earlier they see it the better. But maybe I'm overthinking. I certainly can't claim that no drivers could ever be distracted by these signs. How is that better than being able to read the sign and being sure that's not the way you need to go? Works for me. If I'm driving, I don't need or want to be bothered by irrelevant information.

By: pracowity

pracowity — Mon, 08 Sep 2008 02:34:54 -0800

The right sign is of course the little blinking one on your dash that says "Now exiting parking ramp. Please wait." Your car checks to see what it can do in that area and offers you a choice. If you select "Exit parking ramp", your car backs out of the parking space, navigates down to street level (while you fix your makeup or crack one off, depending), and stops at the gate to allow you to pay and resume control. (You might want to add "Thrill" mode, too; then the car would turn off its lights, pop into reverse, and zoom backwards really fast all the way down to the gate with the windows open and the sound system on 11.)

By: Ritchie

Ritchie — Mon, 08 Sep 2008 03:02:57 -0800

"Thrill" mode reminds me of the time a weekend rally driver took me down the spiralling ramps in the parking garage at Melbourne Airport at approximately eleventy-billion kilometres per hour in his souped-up Nissan. Up until now, I'd successfully repressed that. Thanks a lot, jerk.

By: chuckdarwin

chuckdarwin — Mon, 08 Sep 2008 04:15:25 -0800

I imagine that the 'right spot' would be the exact spot you'd need to be in anyway (because of where the car is normally when entering/exiting/navigating...

By: Daddy-O

Daddy-O — Mon, 08 Sep 2008 06:59:02 -0800

Cool the way the words seem to float in space when viewed from the intended perspective. I'll bet this works a lot better in practice than the skeptics here think it does.

By: monospace

monospace — Mon, 08 Sep 2008 07:53:09 -0800

Down and out.

By: quin

quin — Mon, 08 Sep 2008 10:34:49 -0800

I'd seen the yellow "Down" sign photos somewhere else (Cracked.com maybe?) and all I could think was "holy crap... the words, they are floating..." I could imagine walking out of an elevator, not expecting that kind of of thing, and for just a moment, questioning if your eyes were seeing what was in front of you. Which is to say, that is a damn cool idea.