Carports Vs Garages

It is cheaper to build a carport instead of a garage, and in Canada it is arguably also more practical.

Why?

Well, have you ever had to shovel snow out of a driveway just to get the garage door open?

Or is your garage so full of stuff that you park in the driveway anyway and don't actually park your car inside the garage?

That is why. Carports give you the advantage of being able to park your car in the driveway, but still have a roof over top of it so you don't have to shovel the snow so much.

Plus carports never have the problem of junk accumulating in your garage, stuff that rightfully belongs either:

In your basement.
In your attic.
In your recycling bins, because lets face it, a lot of the junk people keep in their garage is really just garbage.

Now I understand some people just love having a garage, but parking in a carport is so much easier and you get many of the benefits of having a garage, but without the cost and certain annoying factors that come with garages. Thus to me a carport makes a great deal of sense just for its convenience.

In the USA carports are more popular in the southern states and near army bases, thanks to the 1950s modernist movement which saw many residential communities built near military bases using the modernist designs, which in turn used carports as part of their designs quite often.

The designs shown above are by Mike Kopecky, who grew up near an army base in Texas and now lives in Toronto. He is the designing houses for a retro-modernist community in Leander Texas, but hopes that developers in Toronto may become inspired to try something similar here in Canada. You can read more about his development in Leander in the Globe and Mail.

Below are some different, interesting and innovative designs for carports. I especially liked the ones with the solar panels and plants.