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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...

Transit hubs increasingly designed to serve as desirable (and profitable) public spaces

2017-02-28T17:36:00-05:00

The notion of spending time at a subway stop or other major transit center for pleasure may strike you as odd, but many cities and transportation companies are investing heavily in building up this part of their infrastructure to create desirable public spaces (it adds a whole new dimension to "mixed-use"). In this feature by Kim Slowey for Construction Dive, the shift in investment is explored:

Architecture firm HOK designed the Anaheim Regional Transportation Intermodel Center (ARTIC) in California, a 21st century take on the massive transit halls of the past. Finished in 2014, using steel and ethylene tetrafluoroethylene "pillows," designers created a hangar-like, light-filled area that makes room for dining and shopping, as well as for additional future commercial development.

Skanska also completed an ultra-modern, $4 billion World Trade Center Transportation Hub last year, which connects city subway lines and PATH trains to New Jersey, to replace the one destroyed in the Sept. ...

The video "Oculus" surveys the history, context, and execution of Calatrava's transit hub

2017-02-07T18:24:00-05:00

How does Santiago Calatrava's Oculus encapsulate the complex history and significance of its site? In this brief video from filmmaker Jeff Durkin, Calatrava's elaborate transit hub canopy is sited in its aesthetic and social contexts via a series of carefully selected voice-over news clips and aesthetic commentary. Here, the horror of 9/11, the beauty of human perception, and sweeping shots of the architecture itself are layered to create this filmmaker's interpretation of what the Oculus is. Watch it here:

$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: