122-490: The Kirchberg District Centre ( French : Centre de Quartier Kirchberg ; German : Stadtteilzentrum Kirchberg ) is a mixed-use building complex in northeastern Kirchberg , Luxembourg City , Luxembourg containing both an office complex and shopping mall, with their principal tenants respectively being the European Commission 's statistical office, Eurostat , and an Auchan hypermarket . Those parts of
244-597: A 1975 marine vessel was transformed into a floating pontoon multi-storey car parking facility. The ship was given the new name P-Arken (a pun on the words park and ark ) and it is permanently towed in Gothenburg 's harbour Lilla Bommen near Skeppsbron . In November 2019, a fully-clad parking barge for automobiles was patented in the United States. Its angular sides are designed to protect against driving wind, rain, and debris. In October 2009,
366-403: A 5.13 million euro a new food court was added to the shopping mall in work carried out by local construction firm CBL, utilising a design by architectural firm Moreno Architecture & Associates. Those parts of the building corresponding to the shopping mall were acquired by French retail group Auchan . An Auchan hypermarket, occupying the two storeys in the northeast of the shopping gallery,
488-744: A French official to teachers in the department of Finistère , in western Brittany, included the following: "And remember, Gents: you were given your position in order to kill the Breton language". The prefect of Basses-Pyrénées in the French Basque Country wrote in 1846: "Our schools in the Basque Country are particularly meant to replace the Basque language with French..." Students were taught that their ancestral languages were inferior and they should be ashamed of them; this process
610-431: A comprehensive academic study entitled "The World's 10 most influential languages". In the article, Weber ranked French as, after English, the second-most influential language of the world, ahead of Spanish. His criteria were the numbers of native speakers, the number of secondary speakers (especially high for French among fellow world languages), the number of countries using the language and their respective populations,
732-555: A foreign language. Due to the rise of French in Africa, the total French-speaking population worldwide is expected to reach 700 million people in 2050. French is the fastest growing language on the continent (in terms of either official or foreign languages). French is increasingly being spoken as a native language in Francophone Africa, especially in regions like Ivory Coast , Cameroon , Gabon, Madagascar , and
854-662: A fourth-floor section failed at the Centergy building in midtown Atlanta , pancaking down and destroying more than 30 vehicles but injuring no-one. In December 2007, a car crashed into the wall of the deck at the SouthPark Mall in Charlotte, North Carolina , weakening it and causing a small collapse which destroyed two cars below. On the same day, one under construction in Jacksonville, Florida collapsed as concrete
976-410: A gross area of approximately 180,000 m (1,900,000 sq ft), and consists of two parallel galleries either side of a central atrium spanned by a glass and polytetrafluoroethylene (PTFE) canopy roof. The first and second storeys comprise the shopping mall area, whilst those storeys above are dedicated to office space. Bridges, which span the central atrium, above the shopping levels, connect
1098-521: A larger building, often underground as part of the basement, such as the parking lot at the Atlantic Station redevelopment in Atlanta . This saves land for other uses (as opposed surface parking), is cheaper and more practical in most cases than a separate structure, and is hidden from view. It protects customers and their cars from weather such as rain, snow, or hot summer sunshine that raises
1220-481: A man was killed during a robbery in the parking garage at The Mall at Short Hills in Millburn, New Jersey . The paramedics responding to the shooting were delayed because their ambulance was too large to enter the structure. In the United States, costs for parking garages are estimated to cost between $ 25,000 per space, with underground parking costing around $ 35,000 per space. Parking structures are subjected to
1342-516: A number of regional terms: Architects and structural engineers in the USA are likely to call it a parking structure since their work is all about structures and since that term is the vernacular in the United States. When constructed as the base of a high-rise, it is sometimes called a parking podium . United States building codes use the term open parking garage to refer to a structure designed for car storage that has openings along at least 40% of
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#17327810834261464-487: A parking structure under construction at a campus of Miami-Dade College in Florida collapsed, purportedly due to an unfinished column. The Surfside condominium's main building's collapse that killed ninety-eight people was likely caused by the failure of the long-term degradation of reinforced concrete structural support in the basement-level parking garage. As multi-storey car parks have become more common since
1586-705: A period of prosperity and prominence among European nations. Richelieu established the Académie française to protect the French language. By the early 1800s, Parisian French had become the primary language of the aristocracy in France. Near the beginning of the 19th century, the French government began to pursue policies with the end goal of eradicating the many minorities and regional languages ( patois ) spoken in France. This began in 1794 with Henri Grégoire 's "Report on
1708-494: A relic of the old nominal case system of Latin longer than most other Romance languages (with the notable exception of Romanian which still currently maintains a case distinction), differentiating between an oblique case and a nominative case. The phonology was characterized by heavy syllabic stress, which led to the emergence of various complicated diphthongs such as -eau which would later be leveled to monophthongs. The earliest evidence of what became Old French can be seen in
1830-587: A second language. French is the second most taught foreign language in the EU. All institutions of the EU use French as a working language along with English and German ; in some institutions, French is the sole working language (e.g. at the Court of Justice of the European Union ). French is also the 16th most natively spoken language in the world, the sixth most spoken language by total number of speakers , and
1952-526: A second language. However it has also become a native language in a number of urban areas, especially in regions like Ivory Coast , Cameroon , Gabon, Madagascar , and the Democratic Republic of the Congo . In some North African countries, though not having official status, it is also a first language among some upper classes of the population alongside indigenous languages, but only
2074-941: A second one among the general population. In 2015, approximately 40% of the Francophone population (including L2 and partial speakers) lived in Europe, 36% in sub-Saharan Africa and the Indian Ocean, 15% in North Africa and the Middle East, 8% in the Americas, and 1% in Asia and Oceania. French is the second most widely spoken mother tongue in the European Union . Of Europeans who speak other languages natively, approximately one-fifth are able to speak French as
2196-520: A top speed of 20 miles per hour. The earliest known parking garage in the United States was built in 1918 for the Hotel La Salle at 215 West Washington Street in the West Loop area of downtown Chicago, Illinois. It was designed by Holabird and Roche. The Hotel La Salle was demolished in 1976, but the parking structure remained because it had been designated as preliminary landmark status and
2318-547: A variant of Canadian French , is spoken in parts of New England . Missouri French was historically spoken in Missouri and Illinois (formerly known as Upper Louisiana ), but is nearly extinct today. French also survived in isolated pockets along the Gulf Coast of what was previously French Lower Louisiana , such as Mon Louis Island , Alabama and DeLisle, Mississippi (the latter only being discovered by linguists in
2440-447: A vehicle's interior temperature to extremely high levels. Underground parking of only two levels was considered an innovative concept in 1964, when developer Louis Lesser developed a two-level underground parking structure under six 10-storey high-rise residential halls at California State University, Los Angeles , which lacked space for horizontal expansion in the 176-acre (0.71 km ) university. The simple two-level parking structure
2562-697: Is Mall of America in Bloomington, Minnesota , USA, which has two large parking lots attached to the building, at the eastern and western ends. A common position for parking within shopping centers in the UK is on the roof, around the various utility systems, enabling customers to take lifts straight down into the center. Examples of such are The Oracle in Reading and Festival Place in Basingstoke . Parking garages without mixed use can provide excellent uses for
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#17327810834262684-437: Is 95%, and in the French collectivity of Wallis and Futuna , it is 84%. In French Polynesia and to a lesser extent Wallis and Futuna, where oral and written knowledge of the French language has become almost universal (95% and 84% respectively), French increasingly tends to displace the native Polynesian languages as the language most spoken at home. In French Polynesia, the percentage of the population who reported that French
2806-779: Is a Romance language of the Indo-European family . Like all other Romance languages, it descended from the Vulgar Latin of the Roman Empire . French evolved from Gallo-Romance , the Latin spoken in Gaul , and more specifically in Northern Gaul. Its closest relatives are the other langues d'oïl —languages historically spoken in northern France and in southern Belgium, which French ( Francien ) largely supplanted. French
2928-727: Is a building designed for car, motorcycle and bicycle parking in which parking takes place on more than one floor or level. The first known multistorey facility was built in London in 1901 and the first underground parking was built in Barcelona in 1904 (see history ). The term multistorey (or multistory) is almost never used in the US, because almost all parking structures have multiple parking levels. Parking structures may be heated if they are enclosed. Design of parking structures can add considerable cost for planning new developments, with costs in
3050-465: Is a multi-storey car park structure with a ground floor and 5 floors above that, i.e. a total of 6 floors. The preceding does not apply to the United States where B+x refers to basement levels ascending in number x while descending in elevation, L1 or ground level [unlike European standards where ground level is below Level 1] with added levels as L2, etc. Structure car parks are car parks made of structural steel components connected to each other to carry
3172-472: Is a widespread second language among the Lebanese people , and is taught in many schools along with Arabic and English. French is used on Lebanese pound banknotes, on road signs, on Lebanese license plates , and on official buildings (alongside Arabic). Today, French and English are secondary languages of Lebanon , with about 40% of the population being Francophone and 40% Anglophone. The use of English
3294-489: Is also a working language in nonprofit organisations such as the Red Cross (alongside English, German, Spanish, Portuguese, Arabic and Russian), Amnesty International (alongside 32 other languages of which English is the most used, followed by Spanish, Portuguese, German, and Italian), Médecins sans Frontières (used alongside English, Spanish, Portuguese and Arabic), and Médecins du Monde (used alongside English). Given
3416-430: Is among the top five most studied languages worldwide, with about 120 million learners as of 2017. As a result of French and Belgian colonialism from the 16th century onward, French was introduced to new territories in the Americas, Africa, and Asia. French has a long history as an international language of literature and scientific standards and is a primary or second language of many international organisations including
3538-462: Is an official language in 27 countries , as well as one of the most geographically widespread languages in the world, with about 50 countries and territories having it as a de jure or de facto official, administrative, or cultural language. Most of these countries are members of the Organisation internationale de la Francophonie (OIF), the community of 54 member states which share
3660-652: Is enacted only in New Brunswick, where about one third of the population is Francophone. French is also an official language of all of the territories ( Northwest Territories , Nunavut , and Yukon ). Out of the three, Yukon has the most French speakers, making up just under 4% of the population. Furthermore, while French is not an official language in Ontario , the French Language Services Act ensures that provincial services are available in
3782-594: Is generally not recommended to use automated car parks for high peak hour volume facilities. Additional factors that need to be taken into consideration are: Automotive factories and car dealerships often use automated car parks to store inventory, which makes best use of space if they operate in urban areas, plus the car park may be decorated to promote the brand. For instance at the Autostadt there are two 60 meter/200 ft tall glass silos (AutoTürme) used as storage for new Volkswagens. The two towers are connected to
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3904-503: Is growing in the business and media environment. Out of about 900,000 students, about 500,000 are enrolled in Francophone schools, public or private, in which the teaching of mathematics and scientific subjects is provided in French. Actual usage of French varies depending on the region and social status. One-third of high school students educated in French go on to pursue higher education in English-speaking institutions. English
4026-404: Is known as Old French. The period of Old French spanned between the 8th and 14th centuries. Old French shared many characteristics with Latin. For example, Old French made use of different possible word orders just as Latin did because it had a case system that retained the difference between nominative subjects and oblique non-subjects . The period is marked by a heavy superstrate influence from
4148-580: Is measured in cars per level square footage [car count/level area]. Common structural systems in the United States for long-span structures are prestressed concrete double-tee floor systems, post-tensioned cast-in-place concrete floor systems or short-span podium parking with post-tensioned slabs and drop panels [drop heads. Steel embeds or thicker slabs can eliminate the need for drop panels, providing higher clearances for higher profile vehicles.] In recent times, parking structures built to serve residential and some business properties have been built as part of
4270-404: Is no need for an energy-intensive ventilating system , since cars are not driven inside and human cashiers or security personnel may not be needed. For naturally ventilated car parks structures, the ventilation equipment is not needed. Automated car parks rely on similar technology to that used for mechanical handling and document retrieval. The driver leaves the car in an entrance module, and it
4392-469: Is often considered to be a useful skill by business owners in the United Kingdom; a 2014 study found that 50% of British managers considered French to be a valuable asset for their business, thus ranking French as the most sought-after foreign language there, ahead of German (49%) and Spanish (44%). MIT economist Albert Saiz calculated a 2.3% premium for those who have French as a foreign language in
4514-828: Is one of the official languages of such major international and regional courts, tribunals, and dispute-settlement bodies as the African Court on Human and Peoples' Rights , the Caribbean Court of Justice , the Court of Justice for the Economic Community of West African States , the Inter-American Court of Human Rights , the International Court of Justice , the International Criminal Tribunal for
4636-689: Is reserved for the disabled; above every parking space), indoor positioning system (IPS), including QR code , and mobile payment options. The Santa Monica Place shopping mall in California has cameras on each stall that can help count the lot occupancy and find lost cars. Online booking technology service providers have been created to help drivers find long-term parking in an automated manner, while also providing significant savings for those who book parking spaces ahead of time. They use real-time inventory management checking technology to display car parks with availability, sorted by price and distance from
4758-576: Is taught in universities around the world, and is one of the world's most influential languages because of its wide use in the worlds of journalism, jurisprudence , education, and diplomacy. In diplomacy, French is one of the six official languages of the United Nations (and one of the UN Secretariat 's only two working languages ), one of twenty official and three procedural languages of the European Union , an official language of NATO ,
4880-553: Is the language of business and communication, with French being an element of social distinction, chosen for its emotional value. French is an official language of the Pacific Island nation of Vanuatu , where 31% of the population was estimated to speak it in 2023. In the French special collectivity of New Caledonia , 97% of the population can speak, read and write French while in French Polynesia this figure
5002-483: Is the native language of about 23% of the Swiss population, and is spoken by 50% of the population. Along with Luxembourgish and German, French is one of the three official languages of Luxembourg , where it is generally the preferred language of business as well as of the different public administrations. It is also the official language of Monaco . At a regional level, French is acknowledged as an official language in
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5124-492: Is the second-most spoken language (after English) in the states of Maine and New Hampshire . In Louisiana , it is tied with Spanish for second-most spoken if Louisiana French and all creoles such as Haitian are included. French is the third most spoken language (after English and Spanish) in the states of Connecticut , Rhode Island , and New Hampshire . Louisiana is home to many distinct French dialects, collectively known as Louisiana French . New England French , essentially
5246-424: Is the sole official language in the province of Quebec , where some 80% of the population speak it as a native language and 95% are capable of conducting a conversation in it. Quebec is also home to the city of Montreal , which is the world's fourth-largest French-speaking city, by number of first language speakers. New Brunswick and Manitoba are the only officially bilingual provinces, though full bilingualism
5368-401: Is then transported to a parking slot by a robotic trolley . For the driver, the process of parking is reduced to leaving the car inside an entrance module. At peak periods a wait may occur before entering or leaving, because loading passengers and luggage occurs at the entrance and exit rather than at the parking stall. This loading blocks the entrance or exit from being available to others. It
5490-473: Is typically higher than conventional car park structures, however, this can be offset by the higher space efficiency including reduced excavation waste from minimized footprints. The cost of the mechanical equipment needed to transport the cars needs to be added to the building cost. In addition, operation and maintenance costs of the mechanical equipment need to be added in order to determine the total cost of ownership. Other costs could be saved, for example, there
5612-543: Is used in the United Kingdom, Hong Kong, and many Commonwealth of Nations countries, and it is nowadays most commonly spelled without a hyphen. In the United States, the term parking structure is used, especially when it is necessary to distinguish such a structure from the "garage" connected with a house. In some places in North America, "parking garage" refers only to an indoor, often underground, structure. Outdoor, multi-level parking facilities are referred to by
5734-764: The Aosta Valley region of Italy where it is the first language of approximately 50% of the population, while French dialects remain spoken by minorities on the Channel Islands . It is also spoken in Andorra and is the main language after Catalan in El Pas de la Casa . The language is taught as the primary second language in the German state of Saarland , with French being taught from pre-school and over 43% of citizens being able to speak French. The majority of
5856-462: The Aosta Valley region of Italy; and various communities elsewhere. French is estimated to have about 310 million speakers, of which about 80 million are native speakers. According to the OIF, approximately 321 million people worldwide are "able to speak the language" as of 2022, without specifying the criteria for this estimation or whom it encompasses. In Francophone Africa, it is spoken mainly as
5978-539: The Democratic Republic of Congo . There is not a single African French , but multiple forms that diverged through contact with various indigenous African languages . Sub-Saharan Africa is the region where the French language is most likely to expand, because of the expansion of education and rapid population growth. It is also where the language has evolved the most in recent years. Some vernacular forms of French in Africa can be difficult to understand for French speakers from other countries, but written forms of
6100-485: The European Union , French was the dominant language within all institutions until the 1990s. After several enlargements of the EU (1995, 2004), French significantly lost ground in favour of English, which is more widely spoken and taught in most EU countries. French currently remains one of the three working languages, or "procedural languages", of the EU, along with English and German. It is the second-most widely used language within EU institutions after English, but remains
6222-559: The Francien dialect is one that not only continued but also thrived during the Middle French period (14th–17th centuries). Modern French grew out of this Francien dialect. Grammatically, during the period of Middle French, noun declensions were lost and there began to be standardized rules. Robert Estienne published the first Latin-French dictionary, which included information about phonetics, etymology, and grammar. Politically,
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#17327810834266344-877: The International Olympic Committee , the Council of Europe , the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development , Organization of American States (alongside Spanish, Portuguese and English), the Eurovision Song Contest , one of eighteen official languages of the European Space Agency , World Trade Organization and the least used of the three official languages in the North American Free Trade Agreement countries. It
6466-571: The National Building Museum opened an exhibition solely devoted to the study of parking garages and their impact on the built environment. This exhibition, titled House of Cars: Innovation and the Parking Garage , was on view until 11 July 2010. Additional information on the design and building of parking structures can be found in "Parking Structures: planning, design, construction, maintenance, and repair" This resource
6588-626: The Oaths of Strasbourg and the Sequence of Saint Eulalia , while Old French literature began to be produced in the eleventh century, with major early works often focusing on the lives of saints (such as the Vie de Saint Alexis ), or wars and royal courts, notably including the Chanson de Roland , epic cycles focused on King Arthur and his court , as well as a cycle focused on William of Orange . It
6710-1012: The United Nations , the European Union, the North Atlantic Treaty Organization , the World Trade Organization , the International Olympic Committee , the General Conference on Weights and Measures , and the International Committee of the Red Cross . French is a Romance language (meaning that it is descended primarily from Vulgar Latin ) that evolved out of the Gallo-Romance dialects spoken in northern France. The language's early forms include Old French and Middle French . Due to Roman rule, Latin
6832-455: The 1990s) but these varieties are severely endangered or presumed extinct. French is one of two official languages in Haiti alongside Haitian Creole . It is the principal language of education, administration, business, and public signage and is spoken by all educated Haitians. It is also used for ceremonial events such as weddings, graduations, and church masses. The vast majority of the population speaks Haitian Creole as their first language;
6954-474: The 20th century, when it was replaced by English as the United States became the dominant global power following the Second World War . Stanley Meisler of the Los Angeles Times said that the fact that the Treaty of Versailles was written in English as well as French was the "first diplomatic blow" against the language. During the Grand Siècle (17th century), France, under the rule of powerful leaders such as Cardinal Richelieu and Louis XIV , enjoyed
7076-510: The Canadian capital, is also effectively bilingual, as it has a large population of federal government workers, who are required to offer services in both French and English, and is just across the river from the Quebecois city of Gatineau . According to the United States Census Bureau (2011), French is the fourth most spoken language in the United States after English, Spanish, and Chinese, when all forms of French are considered together and all dialects of Chinese are similarly combined. French
7198-614: The Caribbean that are collectively referred to as the French West Indies , namely Guadeloupe , Saint Barthélemy , Saint Martin , and Martinique . French is the official language of both French Guiana on the South American continent, and of Saint Pierre and Miquelon , an archipelago off the coast of Newfoundland in North America. French was the official language of the colony of French Indochina , comprising modern-day Vietnam , Laos , and Cambodia . It continues to be an administrative language in Laos and Cambodia, although its influence has waned in recent decades. In colonial Vietnam,
7320-408: The Empire, this local elite had been slowly abandoning Gaulish entirely, but the rural and lower class populations remained Gaulish speakers who could sometimes also speak Latin or Greek. The final language shift from Gaulish to Vulgar Latin among rural and lower class populations occurred later, when both they and the incoming Frankish ruler/military class adopted the Gallo-Roman Vulgar Latin speech of
7442-416: The Germanic Frankish language , which non-exhaustively included the use in upper-class speech and higher registers of V2 word order , a large percentage of the vocabulary (now at around 15% of modern French vocabulary ) including the impersonal singular pronoun on (a calque of Germanic man ), and the name of the language itself. Up until its later stages, Old French , alongside Old Occitan , maintained
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#17327810834267564-414: The Joseph Bech building, was, between 2004 and 2018, part of a closed-end real estate fund owned by Commerz Real before being sold to an anonymous buyer. Since the building opened in 1998, the principal tenant of the Joseph Bech building has been the European Commission , which uses the building to house its statistics body, Eurostat . This arrangement was made due to the lack of office space provided for by
7686-540: The Roof area: The Grove Parking Garage is the site for movies on its 8th level roof, The Grand Prix of Long Beach, CA can be viewed from the Roof level of The Aquarium of the Pacific Parking Garage and The Pike Parking Garage (opposite the Queensway Structure) were built with a thickened post-tensioned roof slab to accommodate crowds of people. These parking structures often have low ceiling clearances [7'-2" and 8'-4" for accessible parking], which restrict access by full-size vans and other large vehicles. On 15 December 2013,
7808-500: The United States around $ 28,000 per space and $ 56,000 per space for underground (excluding the cost of land), and can be required by cities in parking mandates for new buildings. Some cities such as London have abolished previously enacted minimum parking requirements. Minimum parking requirements are a hallmark of zoning and planning codes for municipalities in the US. (States do not prescribe parking requirements, while counties and cities can). The earliest known multi-storey car park
7930-442: The Volkswagen factory by a 700-metre tunnel. When cars arrive at the towers they are carried up at a speed of 1.5 metres per second. The render for the Autostadt shows 6 towers. When purchasing a car from Volkswagen (the main brand only, not the sub-brands) in select European countries, it is optional if the customer wants it delivered to the dealership where it was bought or if the customer wants to travel to Autostadt to pick it up. If
8052-432: The airport. Other recent developments in technology include Vehicles Detection and Count Systems, Point of Sale & Revenue Control Systems, Traffic & Capacity Monitoring Systems, Valet Parking Point of Sale, Management & Revenue Control Systems. These systems help in way finding for parking clients with space availability shown at every turn, space monitoring using retrofit wifi transmitters in each space to update
8174-432: The building dedicated to office use are collectively referred to as the " Joseph Bech building ", after European Union (EU) pioneer and former Luxembourg prime minister, Joseph Bech . The complex's shopping gallery is referred to as the " Kirchberg Shopping Centre ". Construction work on the Kirchberg District Centre began in October 1993, with those parts of the building related to the shopping mall completed in 1996, and
8296-504: The building is stepped, with the pedestrian entrance to the shopping mall from Avenue John F Kennedy being raised from street level, and the shopping mall only occupying the second storey towards Circuit de la Foire Internationale. The Kirchberg District Centre is situated in the Kiem district of the Luxembourg City quarter of Kirchberg . To the north is the country's largest cinema multiplex, Kinepolis Kirchberg and Luxembourg's national exhibition centre , "Luxexpo The Box". Located between
8418-774: The car park is built on sloping land, it may be split-level or have sloped parking. Many parking structures are independent buildings dedicated exclusively to that use. The design loads for car parks are often less than the office building they serve (50 psf versus 80 [100] psf), leading to long floor spans of 55–65 feet that permit cars to park in rows without supporting columns in between [called long span]. Podium parking below high-rise and mid-rise buildings are often short-span 25–30 feet clear between columns, since office/residential/retail floors above require more support [100 psf per International Building Code]. Columns in short -span structures obstruct row based parking spaces and will be less efficient than long-span designs; parking efficiency
8540-425: The choice of converting a surface to parking area irrevocably. They could be used as permanent structures or are conceived as temporary parking facilities for temporary parking demand needs. A number of parking decks have been demounted after a few years – to make room for the development of a permanent structure – and relocated to respond to local parking demand. The earliest use of an automated parking system (APS)
8662-561: The cold-climate areas which use salt for melting snow. These structures are not usually known for their architectural value. As Architectural Record has noted, "In the Pantheon of Building Types, the parking garage lurks somewhere in the vicinity of prisons and toll plazas." The New York Times has labeled parking structures as "the grim afterthought of American design". A handful of structures have received considerable praise for their design, including The term multistorey car park (often abbreviated to multistorey or multistory )
8784-537: The complex and Circuit de la Foire Internationale is the Kubik building, a cube-shaped structure, currently occupied by the European Stability Mechanism . The complex's official address, and principal street entrance for its office space is given as 5 rue Alphose Weicker, with the street forming the southern border of the building. However, the public entrances to the shopping mall are located to
8906-467: The country near French-speaking Quebec, however, it is the foreign language more commonly taught. Vowel phonemes in French Parking garage A multistorey car park ( Commonwealth English ) or parking garage ( American English ), also called a multistorey , parking building , parking structure , parkade (mainly Canadian ), parking ramp , parking deck , or indoor parking ,
9028-519: The demographic prospects of the French-speaking nations of Africa, researcher Pascal-Emmanuel Gobry wrote in 2014 that French "could be the language of the future". However, some African countries such as Algeria intermittently attempted to eradicate the use of French, and as of 2024 it was removed as an official language in Mali and Burkina Faso . Significant as a judicial language, French
9150-438: The development of a foundationless, modular, removable steel car park structure. Parking demand often grows quickly, significantly and sometimes unexpectedly. Modular steel car parks could be the proper solution if the surface area available is not sufficient and can be expanded upward, or whenever it is not feasible to build up a multi-storey parking. The development of the building concept of modular car parks came about by using
9272-493: The downtown core condominium developments sine the 2010s, due to developers having to meet city-mandated minimum parking space requirements while building on increasingly smaller lots. Modern car parks utilize a variety of technologies to help motorists find unoccupied parking spaces, car location when returning to the vehicle and improve their experience. These include adaptive lighting , sensors and parking space LED indicators (red for occupied, green for available and blue
9394-456: The east on Avenue John F. Kennedy, to the west on Circuit de la Foire Internationale, and to the north via the food court on rue Carlo Hemmer. Since December 2017, trams services have been available from the "Alphonse Weicker" tram stop located in front of the building's Avenue John F. Kennedy entrance. French language French ( français [fʁɑ̃sɛ] or langue française [lɑ̃ɡ fʁɑ̃sɛːz] )
9516-448: The economic power of the countries using the language, the number of major areas in which the language is used, and the linguistic prestige associated with the mastery of the language (Weber highlighted that French in particular enjoys considerable linguistic prestige). In a 2008 reassessment of his article, Weber concluded that his findings were still correct since "the situation among the top ten remains unchanged." Knowledge of French
9638-594: The elites primarily spoke French, while many servants who worked in French households spoke a French pidgin known as " Tây Bồi " (now extinct). After French rule ended, South Vietnam continued to use French in administration, education, and trade. However, since the Fall of Saigon and the opening of a unified Vietnam's economy, French has gradually been effectively displaced as the first foreign language of choice by English in Vietnam. Nevertheless, it continues to be taught as
9760-422: The exterior of the structures. In modern construction of the precast modules, there are other features to improve the strength of the structure. An example is to use prestressed strands on post-tensioned concrete for the construction of the shear walls . Another example is the use of carbon-fiber-reinforced polymer to replace steel wire mesh to lighten the load and yield more corrosion resistance especially for
9882-516: The first government authority to adopt Modern French as official was the Aosta Valley in 1536, while the Ordinance of Villers-Cotterêts (1539) named French the language of law in the Kingdom of France . During the 17th century, French replaced Latin as the most important language of diplomacy and international relations ( lingua franca ). It retained this role until approximately the middle of
10004-915: The former Yugoslavia , International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda , the International Tribunal for the Law of the Sea the International Criminal Court and the World Trade Organization Appellate Body . It is the sole internal working language of the Court of Justice of the European Union , and makes with English the European Court of Human Rights 's two working languages. In 1997, George Weber published, in Language Today ,
10126-829: The gender of the corresponding word in Gaulish. The estimated number of French words that can be attributed to Gaulish is placed at 154 by the Petit Robert , which is often viewed as representing standardized French, while if non-standard dialects are included, the number increases to 240. Known Gaulish loans are skewed toward certain semantic fields, such as plant life ( chêne , bille , etc.), animals ( mouton , cheval , etc.), nature ( boue , etc.), domestic activities (ex. berceau ), farming and rural units of measure ( arpent , lieue , borne , boisseau ), weapons, and products traded regionally rather than further afield. This semantic distribution has been attributed to peasants being
10248-556: The heavy and shifting loads of moving vehicles, and must bear the associated physical stresses. Expansion joints are used between sections not only for thermal expansion but to accommodate the flexing of the structure's sections due to vehicle traffic. Parking structures are generally not subject to building inspections after being checked for their initial occupancy permit . Seismic retrofits can be applied where earthquakes are an issue. Some parking structures have partly collapsed, either during construction or years later. In July 2009
10370-694: The institution's then main Luxembourg complex, the Jean Monnet building. The European Commission plans to vacate the building and the end of its current lease in 2023, with it relocating staff to the Jean Monnet 2 building , currently under construction in Kirchberg's European district. The complex's main structure is an elongated five-story building, stretching from Avenue John F Kennedy to Circuit de la Foire Internationale. The main structure has
10492-454: The language are very closely related to those of the rest of the French-speaking world. French is the second most commonly spoken language in Canada and one of two federal official languages alongside English. As of the 2021 Canadian census , it was the native language of 7.7 million people (21% of the population) and the second language of 2.9 million (8% of the population). French
10614-479: The language, although it has now given way to Tamil and English. A former French mandate , Lebanon designates Arabic as the sole official language, while a special law regulates cases when French can be publicly used. Article 11 of Lebanon's Constitution states that "Arabic is the official national language. A law determines the cases in which the French language is to be used". The French language in Lebanon
10736-612: The language. The Act applies to areas of the province where there are significant Francophone communities, namely Eastern Ontario and Northern Ontario . Elsewhere, sizable French-speaking minorities are found in southern Manitoba, Nova Scotia , Prince Edward Island and the Port au Port Peninsula in Newfoundland and Labrador, where the unique Newfoundland French dialect was historically spoken. Smaller pockets of French speakers exist in all other provinces. The Ontarian city of Ottawa ,
10858-479: The last to hold onto Gaulish. The beginning of French in Gaul was greatly influenced by Germanic invasions into the country. These invasions had the greatest impact on the northern part of the country and on the language there. A language divide began to grow across the country. The population in the north spoke langue d'oïl while the population in the south spoke langue d'oc . Langue d'oïl grew into what
10980-661: The latter is chosen, the Autostadt supplies the customer with free entrance, meal tickets and a variety of events building up to the point where the customer can follow on screen as the automatic elevator picks up the selected car in one of the silos. The car is then transported out to the customer without having driven a single meter, and the odometer is thus on "0". Automated car parks have been popular for multistorey residential buildings in New York City and Paris . In Toronto , automated car parks are gradually catching in
11102-472: The loads and provide full structural rigidity. Steel is a high-strength material requiring less material than other types of structures like concrete and timber. Steel construction features: The ceiling slab of the steel structure car park is typically made of composite material such as corrugated steel sheets and concrete. The surface of the first-floor parking can be left bare or covered with epoxy or tarmac. Demand, steel features, and innovation have led to
11224-446: The middle of the twentieth century, many constructions of such structures have been using precast concrete to reduce the construction time. The design involves putting parking structure parts together. The parts of precast concrete include multi-storey structural wall panels, interior and exterior columns, structural floors, girders , wall panels, stairs, and slabs. The precast concrete parts are transported using flatbed semi-trailers to
11346-466: The modular assembling method of vertical and horizontal elements (such as columns and beams) Modular car park structures are versatile and can be built in phases or in different sizes and shape. The solution makes it possible to develop a parking structure even in case of particular conditions or constraints, such as archaeological sites or city centres, because it allows: These parking structures are generally demountable and can be relocated to avoid making
11468-420: The necessity and means to annihilate the patois and to universalize the use of the French language". When public education was made compulsory , only French was taught and the use of any other ( patois ) language was punished. The goals of the public school system were made especially clear to the French-speaking teachers sent to teach students in regions such as Occitania and Brittany . Instructions given by
11590-544: The offices completed in September 1998. The total cost of the project was approximately 300 million euros. The project's chief architect was Martin Lammar of local architectural firm Atelier A+U, in partnership with Lars Iwdal of Swedish architectural firm arkitektbyrån ab, and Murray Church of Hochtief Luxembourg. Between 1999 and 2001, the building's car parking facilities were extended. Between April 2008 and July 2009
11712-589: The official use or teaching of French. It is spoken as a first language (in descending order of the number of speakers) in France; Canada (especially in the provinces of Quebec, Ontario, and New Brunswick); Belgium ( Wallonia and the Brussels-Capital Region ); western Switzerland (specifically the cantons forming the Romandy region); parts of Luxembourg; parts of the United States (the states of Louisiana, Maine, New Hampshire, and Vermont); Monaco;
11834-534: The other main foreign language in the Vietnamese educational system and is regarded as a cultural language. All three countries are full members of La Francophonie (OIF). French was the official language of French India , consisting of the geographically separate enclaves referred to as Puducherry . It continued to be an official language of the territory even after its cession to India in 1956 until 1965. A small number of older locals still retain knowledge of
11956-420: The perimeter, as opposed to an enclosed parking garage that requires mechanical ventilation. Natural or mechanical ventilation provides fresh air flow to disperse car exhaust in normal conditions, or hot gas and smoke in case of fire. Typically parking consultants in the UK describe the number of car park floors in terms of "G+x". G stands for ground and x for the number of floors above ground. For example, G+5
12078-471: The preferred language of certain institutions or administrations such as the Court of Justice of the European Union , where it is the sole internal working language, or the Directorate-General for Agriculture . Since 2016, Brexit has rekindled discussions on whether or not French should again hold greater role within the institutions of the European Union. A leading world language , French
12200-471: The rest largely speak French as a first language. As a French Creole language , Haitian Creole draws the large majority of its vocabulary from French, with influences from West African languages, as well as several European languages. It is closely related to Louisiana Creole and the creole from the Lesser Antilles . French is the sole official language of all the overseas territories of France in
12322-438: The sites. The structural floor modules may need to be laid tilted during the transportation in order to cover as large floor area as possible while they can be easily transported on the roadways. The modules are lifted using precast concrete lifting anchor systems at the sites for assembly. Decorations may include using of covers to close the holes in the precast concrete that contains the lifting anchors, and installing facades to
12444-701: The space availability signs and to alert parking management of bottle necks and intervention measures. Revenue Control, Capacity Management, and Valet Point of Sale is a major issue for Office and Retail parking management and is also a means of parking management intervention, where website update the status of all of these issues for exclusive use by management. Irvine Spectrum Center, Irvine CA, with 3 parking structures, uses all of these systems The City of Santa Monica uses Traffic and Capacity Monitoring with its 30 parking structures. Disneyland, in Anaheim CA uses most of these hi-tech solutions on its 8 garages. In 1991,
12566-603: The structure was several blocks from the hotel. It was demolished in 2005 after failing to receive landmark status from the city of Chicago. A 49-storey apartment tower, 215 West, has taken its place, also featuring a parking garage. When the Capital Garage in Washington, D.C. was built in 1927, it was reportedly the largest parking structure of its kind in the country. It was imploded in 1974. The movement of vehicles between floors can take place by means of: Where
12688-466: The total number of French speakers will reach approximately 500 million in 2025 and 650 million by 2050, largely due to rapid population growth in sub-Saharan Africa . OIF estimates 700 million French speakers by 2050, 80% of whom will be in Africa. In a study published in March 2014 by Forbes , the investment bank Natixis said that French could become the world's most spoken language by 2050. In
12810-679: The two official languages—along with Dutch —of the Brussels-Capital Region , where it is spoken by the majority of the population (approx. 80%), often as their primary language. French is one of the four official languages of Switzerland, along with German, Italian, and Romansh , and is spoken in the western part of Switzerland, called Romandy , of which Geneva is the largest city. The language divisions in Switzerland do not coincide with political subdivisions, and some cantons have bilingual status: for example, cities such as Biel/Bienne and cantons such as Valais , Fribourg and Bern . French
12932-455: The two parallel office spaces. Attached to the main structure, along its northern edge, facing rue Carlo Hemmer, are four identical parallel five-storey wings used as office space. Between the two wings closest to Circuit de la Foire Internationale lies a later extension to the shopping mall's second storey, in the form of a single-storey food court, adding 2,400 m (7,900 ft) of floor space. A cuboid five-storey office structure attached to
13054-508: The urban intellectual elite. The Gaulish language likely survived into the sixth century in France despite considerable Romanization . Coexisting with Latin, Gaulish helped shape the Vulgar Latin dialects that developed into French contributing loanwords and calques (including oui , the word for "yes"), sound changes shaped by Gaulish influence, and influences in conjugation and word order. Recent computational studies suggest that early gender shifts may have been motivated by
13176-485: The use of French in official government publications, public education except in specific cases, and legal contracts; advertisements must bear a translation of foreign words. In Belgium, French is an official language at the federal level along with Dutch and German. At the regional level, French is the sole official language of Wallonia (excluding a part of the East Cantons , which are German-speaking ) and one of
13298-410: The wing closest to John F Kennedy faces out onto the road. The Kirchberg District Centre is steel framed, with approximately 12,000 tonnes of steel used in the initial construction. Much of the building infrastructure and the parking garage , with 3,500 parking spaces, are located in the three basement levels of the building. Due to the increased terrain height of Circuit de la Foire Internationale,
13420-536: The workplace. In 2011, Bloomberg Businessweek ranked French the third most useful language for business, after English and Standard Mandarin Chinese . In English-speaking Canada, the United Kingdom, and Ireland, French is the first foreign language taught and in number of pupils is far ahead of other languages. In the United States, French is the second-most commonly taught foreign language in schools and universities, although well behind Spanish. In some areas of
13542-402: The world's French-speaking population lives in Africa. According to a 2023 estimate from the Organisation internationale de la Francophonie , an estimated 167 million African people spread across 35 countries and territories can speak French as either a first or a second language . This number does not include the people living in non-Francophone African countries who have learned French as
13664-417: Was also influenced by native Celtic languages of Northern Roman Gaul like Gallia Belgica and by the ( Germanic ) Frankish language of the post-Roman Frankish invaders. Today, owing to the French colonial empire , there are numerous French-based creole languages , most notably Haitian Creole . A French-speaking person or nation may be referred to as Francophone in both English and French. French
13786-623: Was being poured on the sixth floor. In November 2008, the sudden collapse of the middle level of a deck in Montreal was preceded by warning signs some weeks before, including cracks and water leaks. In June 2012, the Algo Centre Mall 's rooftop parking deck collapsed into the building, crashing through the upper level lottery kiosk adjacent to the food court and escalators to the ground floor below, killing two people. In October 2012 four people were killed and nine more injured when
13908-453: Was considered unusual enough in 1964 that a separate newspaper section entitled "Parking Underground" described the parking lot as an innovative "concept" and as "subterranean spaces". In Toronto , a 2,400 space underground parking structure below Nathan Phillips Square is one of the world's largest. Parking which serve shopping centers can be built adjacent to the center for easier access at each floor between shops and parking. One example
14030-819: Was during the period of the Crusades in which French became so dominant in the Mediterranean Sea that became a lingua franca ("Frankish language"), and because of increased contact with the Arabs during the Crusades who referred to them as Franj , numerous Arabic loanwords entered French, such as amiral (admiral), alcool (alcohol), coton (cotton) and sirop (syrop), as well as scientific terms such as algébre (algebra), alchimie (alchemy) and zéro (zero). Within Old French many dialects emerged but
14152-400: Was gradually adopted by the inhabitants of Gaul. As the language was learned by the common people, it developed a distinct local character, with grammatical differences from Latin as spoken elsewhere, some of which is attested in graffiti. This local variety evolved into the Gallo-Romance tongues, which include French and its closest relatives, such as Arpitan . The evolution of Latin in Gaul
14274-665: Was in Paris in 1905 at the Garage Rue de Ponthieu. The APS consisted of a groundbreaking multi-storey concrete structure with an internal elevator to transport cars to upper levels where attendants parked the cars. A 1931 Popular Mechanics article speculated about design for an underground garage where the car is taken to a parking area by a conveyor and then an elevator to shuttles mounted on rails. The total cost of ownership of automated parking needs to be carefully considered. The actual cost of construction of automated car parks
14396-614: Was installed as an anchor store . The retailer estimated a catchment area of 25 kilometres. The store, and the wider shopping mall, opened to the public on 26 November 1996. Martin Draber, then director of Auchan Kirchberg, said the primary commercial rationale for its opening was to "recover part of the 8 billion Luxembourg francs " spent annually by Luxembourg consumers outside of its borders, rather than to directly compete with local businesses. The shopping mall currently contains 66 shops and 16 restaurants. The complex's office space, known as
14518-652: Was known in the Occitan-speaking region as Vergonha . Spoken by 19.71% of the European Union's population, French is the third most widely spoken language in the EU, after English and German and the second-most-widely taught language after English. Under the Constitution of France , French has been the official language of the Republic since 1992, although the Ordinance of Villers-Cotterêts made it mandatory for legal documents in 1539. France mandates
14640-453: Was opened in May 1901 by City & Suburban Electric Carriage Company at 6 Denman Street, central London. The location had space for 100 vehicles over seven floors, totaling 19,000 square feet. The same company opened a second location in 1902 for 230 vehicles. The company specialized in the sale, storage, valeting, and on-demand delivery of electric vehicles that could travel about 40 miles and had
14762-594: Was shaped by its coexistence for over half a millennium beside the native Celtic Gaulish language , which did not go extinct until the late sixth century, long after the fall of the Western Roman Empire . The population remained 90% indigenous in origin; the Romanizing class were the local native elite (not Roman settlers), whose children learned Latin in Roman schools. At the time of the collapse of
14884-570: Was the language they use the most at home rose from 67% at the 2007 census to 74% at the 2017 census. In Wallis and Futuna, the percentage of the population who reported that French was the language they use the most at home rose from 10% at the 2008 census to 13% at the 2018 census. According to a demographic projection led by the Université Laval and the Réseau Démographie de l'Agence universitaire de la Francophonie ,
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