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IT'S RICH!
The cost of parking
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Come the beginning of September and England will come closer to accepting alternative lifestyles into the mainstream of society
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After designer jewellery, designer clothes and designer homes, the latest to join the band is the designer garage. Car manufacturer, Citroën, has unveiled the world's first `designer garage' for its new executive model, the C6. Cobbled together by architects, Neutral, the structure comes with a Rs 9,901,243 (£112,330) price tag - three times the cost of a range-topping C6.
The garage draws inspiration from the pronounced architectural forms of the Citroën C6 itself, and is formed by three solid strands, which create the `skeleton' of the main building that stands three metres tall and covers fifty square metres of area. Constructed out of light transmitting concrete with transparent sliding doors on the sides that allow the vehicle to enter from either the front or the rear, the building securely encloses the C6 in the traditional sense of a garage, but at the same time allows it to be displayed to passers-by.
The transparent sliding plates are made of reinforced, polycarbonate sheets with LCD layers in the sheets, which rapidly turn opaque when the car owner switches on the privacy mode.
If you want to find a justification for this pricey garage, the builder says it makes a bold, spatial statement. Also, for the money you've shelled out, you also get a useable roof terrace and a unique `man-made landscape' adjoining the home. Explain that to the wife. Or your bank's loan department. Gulp!
According to Neutral's Christian Grou, the garage "encourages a visual dialogue between the inside and outside, and between the car and its environment as a result of the use of materials of different transparencies."
Right. And just when you thought your C6 was the most priceless thing you owned, one of those passers-by with an eye for the valuable stuff and sticky fingers, comes right along and swipes the garage instead. Fancy stuff, but a poor idea indeed. Maybe, just maybe, if they float a `buy the garage, get the car free' scheme, there might be takers...
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