Severe bad weather and flooding took place in the Gard this weekend, and many towns are experiencing more and more flood episodes.
To protect in part, Danish architects came up with the idea of a system of underground parking lots ... floating.
The Gard suffered this weekend from severe bad weather which caused flooding in the department.
An episode of floods which reminds many others in recent years and which is likely to intensify.
Innovation in flood control is therefore increasingly at the heart of the news.
Danish architects may have found a solution to save underground car parks from flooding.
Floating parking in case of flood
With climate change and the rise of rivers, more and more cities are working on "sponge cities", that is to say, which drain water to underground reservoirs to limit the flow. effect of floods.
Problem: this leads, in general, to sacrifice underground parking lots.
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But the Danish architects of "Third Nature" had a very simple idea: to install floating parking lots on these underground tanks, with a garden above.
So 99% of the time, we will only see at ground level a classic garden with an underground car park.
But in the event of a flood, as the whole structure is floating, it will rise, come out of the ground, to allow water to accumulate in the reservoir below.
The car park will therefore never be flooded, it will turn into an outdoor car park.
Archimedes thrust
Water from a flood is effectively sufficient to lift an entire underground car park: this is Archimedes' principle.
With the pressure, the water will push the whole structure as if it were a hydraulic piston.
Then the car park will descend, very slowly, while the sewers are able to absorb the excess water.
It will become underground again and its doors will be able to open again.
The project is called Pop-Up.
A concept was presented 2 years ago, but now that they have solved the problems of entry and exit of cars, a first parking lot with 200 spaces will be built in Copenhagen.
It is closely followed by cities around the world, because it has the advantage of exploiting the underground, a critical aspect in cities where there is a great lack of space.