Business park
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A business park or business estate is an area of land in which many office buildings are grouped together. All of the work that goes on is commercial, not industrial or residential.
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Situation
These are popular in many suburban locations, where it is cheaper to develop land because of the lower land costs and the lower building costs for building wider, not necessarily higher. They are also often located near motorways or main roads.
Criticism
The impact of these areas on the urban fabric has been criticized:
- A result of this form of territorial colonization is the proliferation of spaces which escape the control of the built realm: voids between fragments of unconnected residential schemes, gaps between urbanized zones, abandoned farmland, etc. While we debate on whether the traditional city block is a naïve solution to the problem of ordering immediate periphery, a new approach to spacial organization arises with the ease that characterizes any new consumer good, an approach which questions the conventional references of urbanism: the so-called 'commercial, industrial, business and theme park'. ...
- The urbanized park originally sprang the hybridization of the garden-city and Anglo-Saxon university campus models. It adopted the former's low-rise buildings and attention to free spaces as a way of shaping the environment, and the latter's autonomous constructions. In sum, parks are thematic precincts of autonomous architectural set pieces arranged around parking lots and communal services, and are situated at the most accessible points of the metropolitan road network.
- (José María Eaquiaga (November-December 1998). [Expression error: Missing operand for > "The City: Folds and Pieces"]. AV Monographs 74: 4–11.)
List of significant business parks (incomplete)
- Australia
- Thailand
- Bulgaria
- Canada
- Morocco
- China
- Egypt
- Central America
- Germany
- Hong Kong
- Ireland
- Latvia
- Malaysia
- Malta
- Netherlands
- New Zealand
- Poland
- Singapore
- Spain
- United Kingdom
- Aztec West, Bristol
- Birmingham Business Park, Solihull
- Cambridge Business Park, Cambridge an integral part of Silicon Fen.
- Cardiff Gate International Business Park, Pontprennau, Cardiff
- Cobalt Business Park, Newcastle upon Tyne
- Cardiff Business Park, Llanishen, Cardiff
- East Moors Business Park, Tremorfa, Cardiff
- Edinburgh Park, Edinburgh
- GreenPark, Reading, Berkshire
- Milton Park, Oxfordshire
- Omega, Warrington
- Oxford Business Park, Oxford
- Pride Park, Derby
- Shrewsbury Business Park, Shrewsbury
- Slough Trading Estate, Slough
- Solent Business Park, Whiteley, Hampshire
- Solstice Park, Wiltshire
- Stockley Park, Greater London
- Swansea Enterprise Park, Swansea
- Team Valley, Gateshead
- Thames Valley Park, Reading, Berkshire
- Thorpe Park, Leeds
- United States
- Newport Center, Newport Beach, California
- Denver Tech Center, Denver, Colorado
- Research Triangle Park, Raleigh/Durham
- Cummings Research Park, Huntsville, Alabama
- Great Valley Corporate Center, Malvern, Pennsylvania
- Arvida Park of Commerce, Boca Raton, Florida
- Bishop Ranch Business Park, San Ramon, California
Business parks in popular culture
- A 1999 film Office Space shows a setting in a business park.
