A completely transparent bus stop that integrates photovoltaic cells, LED lighting and multimedia displays with interactive information. The project was awarded a Red Dot Design Award in 2014.
The project is being developed by architects Borgos Pieper who won the first prize in the International Design Competition sponsored by the Nordic Centre for Glass (NCFG)’s for an all glass bus shelter prototype that will serve suburban and urban destinations in the Copenhagen Metropolitan Area. The proposal was selected from 275 entries which were submitted for the open competition with participants from over 20 countries. The project also has been awarded with the Red Dot Design award 2014 in the Concept Design category from a field of 4,791 entries from 60 countries.
The design is for a prototype interactive, all-glass bus shelter to be tested in Denmark using advances made with new media, structure and lighting technology in its construction. Parts of the structure were mocked-up at full-scale in December 2013 at the national glaziers school in Holbaek with a full size mock-up due for completion in late 2014.
The project has been exhibited at the Design Museum in Singapore, in the major glass technology and design trade fair, Glasstec in Düsseldorf in the prestigious Glass Technology Live section as well as the Smart Cities Forum in Barcelona in 2016. It is currently on exhibit at the Design Hub in Barcelona.
Our solution focused on making the structure perform soundly by having the back-up wall transition into the roof plane using curved elements that cantilevers progressively more as the shelter enlarged its footprint. A second vertically cantilever wall gently curved in plan supports the wall/ roof plane where the spans became more generous. We integrated frameless LED displays, sensors, photovoltaic and heating elements to the three components that formed the shelter. These are:
1. The curved wall and roof plane
2. The single curved information plane, and
3. A curved and laminated bench with embedded radiant heating (to reduce the cold while waiting in winter months)
This design pushes the limits of current technology in glass structural bonding, its lighting, solar collection and display systems – as we discovered after a further year of engineering the competition submission and testing the solutions with manufacturers in Austria, Germany, Spain and Canada as well as the Glaziers School who provided a hands-on week long workshop in December of 2014.
Borgos Pieper have continued to develop urban infrastructure proposals for manufacturers after this project was concluded in 2015 and are now working on an intelligent street furniture system for fabrication to be used in their urban realm projects in Spain and elsewhere.