Gazebo Designs

ALTERNATIVES TO A GARAGE OR CAR PORT, WHAT DO YOU THINK?

Hi, I'm a product design student about to go into the final year and for our major project we have been given an open brief where we have to identify a problem and come up with a way to fix it. The problem I've been looking at are car shelters. As the owner of a soft top and a VW beetle currently undergoing restoration, this is an issue very close to home. Getting planning permission for a garage and finding the money to build one surely has to be a problem that many have faced in the past as well as actually finding the space to put one. The solution that I'm hoping to design would be a kind of car port or preferably a kind of temporary garage that can be put up on the front lawn or on the driveway without taking up too much space. I'm hoping it'll be big enough that users could store tools and parts within it but be able to pack away and fit into a car boot (since when you buy it, it would have to fit in the car to get it home!) The idea being that it'd a better way of protecting the car inside from the elements and possibly even thieves. It'd hopefully be a better looking and more effective than the tarpaulin shrouds and gazebos I've come across people using already. Now, my question to you is, if such a product could be made at an affordable price and in such a way that any user could put it together without an 'expert', would this be something that interests you? If not then how come and if so what else would you want from this kind of product? Any useful feedback I get from this will be used as part of my degree research so thanks for the help! I think that people who've answered so far may have missed the point I'm trying to get at. The existing types of car shelter I've come across so far are flimsy structures made primarily of plastic sheet that could easily be cut into, meant only to protect from weather. If anyone could provide an example of a SOLID, SECURE structure, that would be far more helpful to my research.

Public Comments

1. Already available. I've seen them advertised in magazines & at an RV dealer.
2. Anything portable and easily assembled is not going to be secure enough to store anything. Look at some portable greenhouses.
3. Portable/temporary garages and shelters are widely available and relatively inexpensive in the USA. I think you need to find another project to work on.