Archinect - News

BIG unveils mass timber transit hub design for Toulouse

2024-03-26T12:38:00-04:00

BIG has unveiled renderings for its new Marengo Multimodal Transport Hub project in Toulouse, France’s fourth largest city. The 129,000-square-foot building connects the city center to the UNESCO-listed Canal du Midi and the Périole neighborhood and will be realized adjacent to the existing Gare Matabiau, which was first built in 1905.

The local studio A+ Architecture is also contributing to the project. The design is for a mass timber structure topped with a rose-colored folded roof replete with photovoltaics and finished in the same tone by a low-carbon concrete floor. Both of these reference the vernacular use of "foraine" brick architecture that is endemic to the southern departmental capital.

Rendering courtesy BIG

Rising exponentially to a height of seven stories, users will access the building on one end and be greeted by shops and a subterranean connector to the metro station underneath. Further on, floors one through six include 71,000 square feet of offices for the region...

Revised design published for Foster + Partners’ Midtown Bus Terminal in New York City

2024-02-15T11:27:00-05:00

The Port Authority of New York and New Jersey has published revised plans for the new Midtown Bus Terminal. The scheme, designed by Foster + Partners, will replace the existing terminal that opened in 1950.

The $10 billion facility will include a 2.1 million square foot terminal with a separate storage and staging building and new ramps leading directly in and out of the Lincoln Tunnel. The revised plans will also include the permanent closure of a portion of 41st Street between Eight and Ninth avenues, as well as a central main entrance, more street-level retail, and a multi-story indoor atrium and new public open space.

Interior view of the proposed facility to replace the main terminal. Image credit: Port Authority of New York and New Jersey

The project is to be delivered through a phased construction approach over four years, with a projected completion in 2032. The new staging and bus storage facility will be delivered first, so as to serve as a temporary terminal while the exis...

Foster + Partners unveils vertiport terminal concept for Dubai

2023-04-10T12:15:00-04:00

A new electric vertical take-off and landing (eVTOL) terminal concept has been unveiled by Foster + Partners.

The firm says its plan would augment the Dubai International Airport (DBX) and was developed in unison with Skyports Infrastructure, which Foster + Partners called a leader in advanced air mobility (AAM). It will help transport air travelers to other nodes in the Dubai Roads and Transport Authority (RTA)’s planned vertiport and metro infrastructure network, itself a zero emissions high-speed system that’s currently being promoted by the government and the emirate's monarch Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum.

Image courtesy Foster + Partners

Placed in the context of Foster + Partners’ other airport designs in the region, the vertiport project will serve as a compliment to its previously proposed King Salman International Airport and the forthcoming Red Sea Airport, both of which are located in Saudi Arabia and were begun in the two years since the firm’s controversial withd...

Foster + Partners selected to lead Port Authority’s new Midtown Bus Terminal design

2022-08-11T17:27:00-04:00

The design of the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey’s new Midtown Bus Terminal will be led by Foster + Partners, the firm and the transit organization announced recently. The Port Authority is in the process of replacing its aging 72-year-old facility and has contracted the team to oversee the expansion of bus and passenger capacity, which includes improving the pickup/dropoff areas in the streets that surround it.

Foster + Partners says: “The new terminal will be designed to provide a best-in-class customer experience that serves the region’s 21st century public transportation needs, while enhancing the surrounding community and allowing for the removal of intercity buses from local streets.”

Image courtesy Port Authority of New York and New Jersey

The multidisciplinary firm A. Epstein & Sons International will join the partnership to leverage its own considerable experience in the design of major public transit facilities. Foster + Partners thus will be asked to “review, e...

Dramatic timber roof defines BIG’s Västerås Travel Center design

2021-05-26T13:51:00-04:00

BIG has unveiled updated plans for a new transportation hub in the heart of the Swedish city of Västerås. Named the Västerås Travel Center, the 17,000-square-meter structure will bring together all of the city’s transport infrastructure in one continuous landscape, under a dramatic, curved roof.

Image: BIG

BIG has proposed a building that unites rather than separates functions. It will serve as the central station for trains and buses while providing a bridge between the city center and the nearby Lake Mälaren, areas currently divided by train tracks. The preliminary plan for the project was initially revealed in 2015. Central to the updated design is a more distinct roof that serves to welcome visitors to the city at multiple points while giving the travel center a clear identity. It is a roof that spreads out, invites from all directions, and creates spatial contexts.

Image: BIG and Playtime

"We have designed the defining feature of Västerås Travel Center, the floating roof, as a r...

Grimshaw's mangrove tree-inspired design proposal wins international Shenzhen airport and transport hub competition

2021-04-14T15:51:00-04:00

Grimshaw adds another transportation hub to their portfolio after being selected as winners of an international competition for Shenzhen Airport East Integrated Transport Hub. Sponsored by the China National Railway Corporation Limited and Shenzhen Municipal People's Government, the winning proposal answered the brief's call for "an aspirational vision to create an integrated intermodal transport hub to act as a new urban gateway and landmark for the Greater Bay Area."

Shenzhen Transportation Hub - "A design consortium led by Grimshaw, alongside Mott MacDonald, China Aviation Planning and Design Institute (AVIC CAPDI) and Beijing Urban Construction Design and Development Group (BJUCD) has been selected as the winner of an international competition for Shenzhen Airport East Integrated Transport Hub." Image and text courtesy of Grimshaw

Shenzhen transportation Hub. Image courtesy of Grimshaw

Aiding in the transportation of a thousand daily commuters, Grimshaw shares the proposal will p...

Tallest Lego model in the U.S. unveiled: One World Trade Center in all its pixely might

2016-07-05T12:55:00-04:00

Just in time for the Independence Day weekend, Legoland is showing off an extensive remodel of its New York miniland, dominated by a towering replica of Manhattan’s One World Trade Center. [...] Nearly a year in the making, the redesigned New York area includes a number of new buildings, a dozen more moving automobiles and a subway system with new cars and tracks that are illuminated and feature sound effects that mimic the real thing.

The Legoland announcement proudly boasts these details:

"The One World Trade Center LEGO model is built with more than 250,000 LEGO bricks, and took eight Master Model Builders more than 1200 hours to build. This dynamic structure weighs more than 1,000 pounds and towers at a record breaking 26 feet, making it the tallest LEGO model in the U.S. For the first time ever, guests can use a special LEGO tower viewer giving them a skyscraper view of Miniland U.S.A. The area also features LEGO model replicas of the 9/11 Memorial’s twin reflecting pools, the grove of memorial trees and the impressive World Trade Center Transportation Hub."

"It looks like a dove. Or a carcass": Christopher Hawthorne on Calatrava's Transportation Hub

2016-03-23T13:25:00-04:00

The Port Authority of New York and New Jersey...has been so chastened by the cost overruns and construction delays that it declined to hold even a modest ribbon-cutting. When a bureaucracy turns down a major opportunity to pat itself on the back, you know things have turned sour. Turned acid, really. Still, everyone seems to agree that the main hall, which stretches beneath a glass and white-steel roof and which Calatrava calls the Oculus, is beautiful. But I didn't find it beautiful...

"...at least not in the way that Calatrava's finest work, fluid and precise, often is. I found it structurally overwrought and emotionally underwhelming, straining for higher meaning, eager to wring some last drops of mournful power from a site that is already crammed with official, semi-official and indirect memorials."

For related coverage of Santiago Calatrava's $4B "elaborate headstone in the crowded ground zero graveyard," as Hawthorne calls it, check out these links:

$4 billion later, Calatrava's eye-candy transit hub opens

2016-03-03T12:56:00-05:00

The hub opens on Thursday, or at least a part of it is opening, including most of the main hall, or Oculus, as it’s called. And at first blush, Mr. Calatrava’s architecture can almost — almost — make you forget what an epic boondoggle the whole thing has been. That virgin view, standing inside the Oculus and gazing up, is a jaw-dropper.

For a blow-by-blow of how Santiago Calatrava's transit hub came to be, check out Archinect's previous coverage:

Port Authority officially confirms March opening date for WTC Transportation Hub Oculus

2016-01-19T13:21:00-05:00

Sure, the news was all but confirmed, but today the Port Authority made it official: The transit org announced that the World Trade Center Transportation Hub—anchored by Spanish architect Santiago Calatrava's Oculus—will officially open in "the first week of March," per a press release. [...] What that actually means for commuters: There will finally be a link between the World Trade Center PATH station and 11 NYC subway lines, along with the East River ferries.

Read the Port Authority's announcement in full here.

The WTC Transportation Hub previously in the Archinect news:

Leaking water delays opening of World Trade Center Transit Hub's luxury shopping mall

2015-11-16T15:54:00-05:00

A persistent water leak is among the problems that have delayed the opening of the mall, which was supposed to be operating by now, to the first half of 2016. It is the latest setback to bedevil the World Trade Center Transportation Hub, the $3.7 billion rail terminal that will also house Westfield’s $1.4 billion shopping center. [...] The latest twist involves water penetration around the construction site of 3 World Trade Center, an office tower abutting the hub, which began in late summer.

Related on Archinect:

Massive 'spine' skylight in Calatrava's WTC Oculus nears completion

2015-07-20T14:35:00-04:00

Santiago Calatrava said the roof would open. And evidently it will. On Friday morning, a 5,700-pound glass panel was hoisted into place as a 355-foot-long operable skylight took final form in the Oculus pavilion of the World Trade Center Transportation Hub, designed by Mr. Calatrava. Another panel went up in the afternoon. Those are among the last of 996 pieces of blast-resistant glass to have been installed at the Oculus since March 15. The glazing should be finished on Monday [...].

Here are some more photos of the skylight's construction progress in the past few weeks (courtesy of WTC Progress).

More about the WTC Transportation Hub in the Archinect news:

Santiago Calatrava: Career highlights still to come

2015-06-09T15:00:00-04:00

This week Calatrava defended his projects. “The reality is that throughout my career I’ve tackled projects in Spain that I’m proud of,” he told Spanish daily El Mundo. [...] At 63 years old, Calatrava said he hoped the best of his career was still to come. “Many of the architects I admire have given the best of themselves as they mature,” he said. “I’m hoping to do the same.”

Previously:

Calatrava: "I have been treated like a dog."

2015-05-20T14:30:00-04:00

In the U.S., he isn’t getting asked to compete for new projects at all, he said, amid criticism of the rail project’s delays and costs. [...] These overruns and years of delay have taken a toll on Mr. Calatrava’s reputation, with local press and some observers painting him as an architect prone to overruns—a point he believes is quite unfair. “It has not been easy for me,” he said. After living in the city for 12 years and feeling pride in the city, “I have been treated like a dog.”

Previously:

NYMag talks to Santiago Calatrava about his WTC Station, budget, reputation

2015-03-12T13:41:00-04:00

Calatrava told me that it wasn’t his job to monitor the budget. “It is very difficult,” he said. “I have never estimated anything in this project, because there was a whole team, maybe 25 people, working the whole time on cost estimation and cost control. But I kept looking at those fellows and telling them this is like geology: You only know what you have under your feet when you excavate.”

How Cost of Train Station at World Trade Center Swelled to $4 Billion

2014-12-03T14:20:00-05:00

The current, temporary trade center station serves... only 10,000 more than use the unassuming 33rd Street PATH terminal in Midtown Manhattan. In fact, the hub, or at least its winged “Oculus” pavilion, could turn out to be more of a high-priced mall than a transportation nexus, attracting more shoppers than commuters. The company operating the mall, Westfield Corporation, promises in a promotional video that it will be “the most alluring retail landmark in the world.”

Winners of the 2014 DawnTown Alternative Mobilities competition

2014-06-10T18:42:00-04:00

Miami is one of several U.S. cities promoting the value of better city infrastructure and the existence of alternative modes of transportation, as emphasized in the Miami DDA Masterplan. In collaboration with the initiative, local non-profit group DawnTown hosted the Alternative Mobilities competition, which asked designers to create a new meeting space in Downtown Miami's Central Business District for people using these alternative transit strategies.

At the end of the competition, three winners were selected:

1st place: "The Catalyst" by Studio GeKo - Bastian Gerner, Pola Rebecca Koch (Arhus, Denmark)

2nd place: "Mobile Miami" by Jeff Jasinski and Matt Dureiko (Kent State University, Cleveland, Ohio)

3rd place: "MoPAD" by Michael Barker (New York City)

Check out videos of each winning submission below.

An update on Calatrava's PATH station

2013-07-22T10:13:00-04:00

In the end, that may be the most astonishing feature of the hub; that a structure of such colossal proportions should be devoted to unobstructed public use. The main transit hall is 365 feet long — a block and a half — making it 90 feet longer than the main concourse of Grand Central Terminal. It is 115 feet wide, or just 5 feet narrower than the Grand Central concourse.

David W. Dunlap visited the still under construction World Trade Center Transportation Hub. Set to open in 2015, the station has an estimated $3.94 billion price tag but was originally priced at $2 billion. The project was also damaged as a result of Hurricane Sandy incurring as much as $400 million in damages.

PATH/Fail: The Story of the World’s Most Expensive Train Station

2013-05-24T18:56:00-04:00

At $3.74 billion, plus another $200 million in contingencies, the “Transportation Hub” at the World Trade Center—not even the busiest station in the Financial District—will be far and away the most expensive train station built in modern history. The Hub, as it’s known in Port Authority speak, will be the crowning artistic statement of the World Trade Center complex, perhaps the last grand gesture at a site that was supposed to be full of them.