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Transit is the connective tissue of cities. Defining how we move around and come together, diverse forms of transportation shape how we experience the places we live. In train stations, elements like circulation, wayfinding and signage, as well as durability and comfort, all come together to create open and inviting atmospheres. Connecting mixed-use neighborhoods, civic institutions and commercial businesses, new train networks can help increase density and bolster economic development. Today, modern train stations balance sustainability with innovative design, materials and technology.
Diving into these complex projects, the following section and plan drawings showcase train station design. Located across three continents, they illustrate advances in public transportation and rail. They explore the diverse formal and spatial organizations across scales, from more intimate stations to large train halls. Throughout the drawings, ideas of structure, light and movement become apparent. They are not only investigations in architecture and design but explorations of what it means to connect people across cities and worldwide.
Moynihan Train Hall
By Skidmore, Owings & Merrill (SOM), New York, NY, United States
Popular Choice Winner, 10th Annual A+Awards, Transportation Infrastructure
The adaptive reuse of the Farley Building — designed by McKim, Mead & White and completed in 1913 — represents the transformation of an underutilized building into a new, inviting front door for New York. The Main Concourse, located in the Farley Building’s former mail sorting room, is designed with a dramatic skylight that traverses the entire space. Seen in section, it reflects the design of the original Penn Station. The skylight is arranged in four catenary vaults, which each comprise more than 500 glass and steel panels that come together to form a moiré effect.
Rotterdam Centraal
By Benthem Crouwel Architects, Rotterdam, Netherlands
The design for the station and the surrounding area was made by Team CS; a cooperation between Benthem Crouwel Architects, MVSA Meyer en Van Schooten Architecten and West 8. The team wanted the design on the north side to manifest as a transparent hall that matches the character of the late nineteenth-century Proveniers district. The new station roof makes a modest and transparent impression on this side. As seen in the drawings, on the city center side, the station exhibits a new grandeur that is in keeping with the dimensions of the high-rise buildings that characterize the entrance to the city.
Køge Nord Station
By DISSING+WEITLING architecture and Cobe, Køge, Denmark
For the station design, the north side of the bridge provides a 180 degree panoramic view over the landscape and traffic lines. As seen in the plan drawing, the station connects people up and over the tracks below. Padded with wooden lamellae, the inside of the bridge becomes a warm and welcoming area, while the outside has a more rough expression with perforated steel plates matching the materials of the surrounding infrastructural system.
Canary Wharf Crossrail
By Foster + Partners, London, United Kingdom
Timber was chosen as the material to enclose the park – it is organic in nature and appearance, strong, adaptable and is sustainably sourced. The design of the lattice itself is a fusion of architecture and engineering. Despite the smooth curve of the enclosure, there are only four curved timber beams in the whole structure. To seamlessly connect the straight beams, which rotate successively along the diagonals, the design team developed an innovative system of steel nodes, which resolve the twist. The visual simplicity of the arching timber lattice belies the geometric complexity of the structure, which is made up of 1,418 beams and 564 nodes.
Assen Station
By De Zwarte Hond, Assen, Netherlands
Through the design process, the team created the triangular station roof to completely span the newly expanded railway line and fulfill a key role in connecting eastern and western city districts. They describe how the complex transport flows of the station square have been resolved with a new platform tunnel for pedestrians, illustrated in section, as well as the restoration and shortening of the existing bicycle tunnel, a car tunnel and an underground bicycle parking garage for 2,600 bicycles. This has created a pedestrian-friendly station area with a high-quality green design, minimal impact from cars and made for a human scale.
Delft City Hall and Train Station
By Mecanoo, Delft, Netherlands
As visitors rise up the escalators, the ceiling with the historic map of Delft unfolds (in collaboration with Geerdes Ontwerpen). When you look outside, you see the city and the old station as a contemporary version of Johannes Vermeer’s painting ‘View of Delft’. The vaulted ceiling features an enormous historic 1877 map of Delft and its surroundings, connecting the station with the city hall. Within the station hall, walls and columns are adorned with a contemporary re-interpretation of Delft Blue tiles. Visitors can walk directly from the station into the city hall.
Koivusaari Metro Station
By Helin & Co Architects, Helsinki, Finland
The Lauttasaari and Koivusaari stations resemble each other. In Lauttasaari the theme is snow and ice, in Koivusaari water and the sea. Both stations have illuminated glass walls as backgrounds to long escalators. In Lauttasaari they have a pack ice pattern, in Koivusaari a sea pattern. A night blue vault structure over the platform area is also a connecting factor. The free-form roof of the Koivusaari station compares with an upside down wooden vessel. The principal exterior cladding materials are acid-proof steel, patinated solid zinc sheet, glass and natural stone. Koivusaari is also the only undersea metro station in the world and its escalator is the longest in Finland.
Shanghai Subway Line 14 Yuyuan Station
By XING DESIGN, Shanghai, China
As seen in plan, Yuyuan station is shaped to accommodate the track splitting and merging, and the distribution of ceiling pipes in the station hall. Therefore, the curved units cannot be simply repeated. Parametric design technology was adapted to generate forms and optimize the number of non-standard units on the basis of fitting to changes, in order to control the cost of mass production and installation. The water wave ceiling is made of tens of thousands of aluminum panels, cut, bent and spliced.
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