MAD Architects has completed their overhaul of the Jiaxing Train Station in China, described by the firm as a “train station in the forest.” Located in the city of Jiaxing, 60 miles southwest of Shanghai, the project included the replacement of an outdated train station that occupied the site from 1995 to 2019.

MAD’s approach saw the full-scale recreation of an original 1907 station that stood on the site alongside a “floating” metal roof above an expanded site. In order to reconstruct the old station, the firm collaborated with architectural experts and scholars to analyze a large amount of historical data, with the 210,000 red and green bricks used to construct the station made of mud sourced from the nearby South Lake.

Surrounding the reconstructed station, MAD sought to create a complex “more humane and efficient than its predecessor.” The interior of the new hub maintains a dialogue with the recreated station through a glass facade, while a minimalist interior is clad with anodized aluminum honeycomb panels in the waiting room to absorb excess noise.

The new entry and exit platforms, waiting halls, and major transport and commercial functions are almost entirely placed underground, with a landscape above ground, in keeping with the team’s “train station in the forest” concept. The renovated railway station has been expanded from three platforms and five lines to three platforms and six lines, with two arrival and departure lines on each of the upstream and downstream main lines. It is expected that by 2025, the full passenger capacity will reach 5.28 million people per year, with an hourly capacity of about 2,500 people at the peak of passenger traffic.

Atop the underground station, the project sees the expansion of an existing park, where 1,500 trees, including beech, camphor, osmanthus, maple, sebifera, sequoia, and cherry, were planted across the site. The trees are arranged to form an axis that incorporates the recreated 1907 building, which, over time, will grow to create a canopy across the entire north square in front of the station.

To the south, seven buildings are dispersed across the landscape, serving cultural and commercial functions amid a central lawn “shaped like rolling green hills.” The buildings are scattered above and below the hills so as to “appear as floating rings above the earth,” while the central lawn will become a venue for outdoor events, including concerts and art festivals.

“We should rethink and redefine the spatial patterns of such transportation infrastructure buildings in China,” MAD founder Ma Yansong said about the thinking behind the project. “We can break away from the common pursuit of grandiose monumental buildings and make them urban public spaces with transport functions, natural ecology, and cultural life, where citizens are happy to go, stay, meet, and enjoy.”

News of the scheme comes one month after MAD designed a Chinese waterfront arts center as a “gentle ripple by the lake.” Recent developments from the firm include Ma Yansong unveiling his Landscapes in Motion exhibition, offering a 20-year reflection on the future of cities, while in October, MAD unveiled plans to renovate a Shanghai cement warehouse with a floating metal ‘ark.’