Parking Tower Scratch Build

I was going to buy a pre-built Japanese parking structure, but I thought that of all the simple structures I could build, this would probably be the easiest. So, why not give it a go?

The idea behind these structures is this:


The building itself is just a big, straight tower.

I did some rough sketches (...then had a giggle about me sketching such a simple shape...) and got to work. I went with styrene as the base as usual.



 I wanted to show the car about to head up in the tower, but also wanted to show other cars inside the structure, so I placed a window high up in the building so you could see inside. I love the square cut and cross method for making a window in styrene.

This meant I had to actually have cars inside to see along with the "trays" they ride on.

The tower was about two cars wide, so I did some basic figures and came up with the tray width based on a van in n scale.

I thought that wire would make a fine bar arrangement for the trays, so I set out originally to cut them and glue them into place. But, after some thought I found that that process might have been more trouble than it was worth and might be in need of a re-thinking.

After giving it some thought, I went with one piece of wire bent into the proper shape. I was going to make a form for the wire to fit over to get the shape, but I went with winging it. Afterward, I wish I went with the form. :)

I sprayed the walls and made sure they fit properly before moving forward.

The walls were the easy part.

With a few more details added in and the cars and people in place, I was pretty happy with the resulting building. However, I plan to add more details once I get my printer up and working again. This building is screaming for more adverts on the side of it.  I also want to take another pass at the "P" - I really hate how it turned out, but that's rushing for you. :) It's really a distracting mess.

Once I take another pass at Shizuka and sort out where things are going, I'm sure I'll be able to find a nice location to showcase the final piece post-tweaking.