03.23.2022 Innovation: Our Solar Electric Car Helix in Shepherd’s Bush

Our proposed circular Solar Electric Car Helix is a concept building that is currently in research and development. It is designed as a power station that uses the car battery as an energy store, with energy captured from the sun on the outside of the building. It’s a design we’d like to see at all transport hubs and along with Shepherd’s Bush Green, Holland Park roundabout is another potential site.

The helix car park will be a bit like a magnet, attracting a lot of metal (the cars) off the street. The car park is designed to free up the kerbside in local streets in order to make much better use of the urban landscape, which will be given back to the communities. It is a 1.3 km by 21-metre strip that forms a double helix, a bit like a staircase in the Vatican or your DNA. You go right up to the top and then you come all the way down. It is purposefully completely adaptable. This will be a continuous car park panel that can be used for anything: a repair workshop for a fleet of Uber cars; private parking; autonomous vehicles.

It is also a solar panel. The roof and its elevation are basically a battery and we can use the car batteries to feed back into the grid. The most important thing. However, is that it clears the streets of the local residents’ cars in exchange for free charging. It is a highly flexible concept building and an urban design concept that we would like to develop further and take to local authorities.