The necessity to accomodate a heavy car load one morning a week often leaves church buildings looking like they sit half-dissolved in a puddle of asphalt. Most of the week, the lots are bare, empty, unsightly, and unfriendly both to the environment and the onlooker.
If you're installing new parking facilities, consider making at least some of them out of permeable concrete pavers which allow grass to grow and water to drain, but are still stable enough for heavy Sunday loads. The rest of the week, it looks like lawn. Will require mowing of course, but IMHO that's preferable to the huge periodic costs of renovating asphalt or concrete lots.
The photos above are from grasscrete, which is in the UK.
Their distributor in the US is the Bomanite corporation.
As you'll note from the site, these are also useful for a lightly used access road, slope protection, and drainage channels.
Consider them anytime you're thinking of pouring asphalt or concrete.
1 comment:
In Germany we have these everywhere and we don't mow them often. In fact I've never seen one being mowed.
On the other hand, our church has a grand total of four parking spaces. We don't need any more because all our members are local. Perhaps, instead of making better parking spaces, we could stop playing the numbers game and set up smaller, more sustainable communities within walking distance of peoples homes, so that the space we'd use for a car park can be a space for people instead.
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