Q-Park Charles Street, colloquially known as the ‘Cheesegrater’ has won an award for the World’s Quirkiest Car Park. The distinctive building in Sheffield City Centre won the award in a rundown of some of the world’s most unusual car parks – beating off competition in Tokyo, Miami and Australia.
The car park was dubbed a ‘multi-storey marvel’ by judges at this prestigious but unusual event. They also commented ‘Located on Charles Street in Sheffield, this 10-level multi-storey car park provides visitors to the city centre with 520 spaces and is affectionately known as the ‘Cheesegrater’ thanks to its striking and cube-shaped external design.’
The car park was designed by architects Allies and Morrison as part of the Heart of the City project in Sheffield, which also included the Peace Gardens, Winter Garden and Millennium Gallery. Other rivals in the award category included a floating car park in Japan and a 2.5 mile long car park in Germany.
This is not the first award the car park as won due to its unique external features. In 2009 the facility won a RIBA Regional Award. These awards are given to UK buildings for their regional importance as a piece of architecture. In 2013 it was then voted into third place in the World’s Coolest Car Park Awards. These awards were created to celebrate the creativity and design in buildings ‘often perceived to be dull and dreary’.
Adam Bidder, Managing Director of Q-Park UK commented ‘We are delighted that Q-Park Charles Street has won yet another award due to its architectural design. We are continuously looking for schemes where we can lend our expertise into moving away from the old style concrete monoliths that blight our city centres. Q-Park would welcome discussions with landlords into how we can assist to develop their facility into something more modern, striking but also sympathetic to its surroundings’.
