Giken Engineering Group's Eco-Cycle urban bicycle parking solution follows the same Five Construction Principles--Environmental Protection, Safety, Speed, Economy and Aesthetics--that they applied to the design of their carpark system. But the Eco-Cycle naturally takes up less space, requiring only a 7-meter-diameter footprint to store 144 bicycles. It's faster, too, at an average of just 10 seconds per storage/retrieval operation.
It's been in operation for at least two years in Japan, but is recently seeing a resurgence of interest on the blog rounds. We love how you just slap a card against the reader to get your bike:
Danny Choo has more complete footage of the entire procedure: