Transportation Hub, Urban Park and Five Housing Towers

The idea is to site the railway tracks and station underground and in the process create a memorable urban event, a hybrid of nature and artifice, capable of rebalancing the city centre by itself.

From the outset it was believed that unifying the high-speed train station and the bus station in a single, sweeping gesture would not Orly have functional benefits but would also allow the creation of a huge pedestrian space, a park or artificial hill that crowns the huge green ring where the train tracks had previously divided the city into two.

Beneath this hill, the train and bus stations create a landform building that, by means of its triangular geometry, reconciles the exterior organic shapes with the interior constructional ones, generating two crackled hypostyle naves around a central dome that, akin to grottoes, extend the public space of the park. To the north, next to the historic city, a great oval plaza is home to more intense activities, underlined by the setting out of five vertical buildings; towards the south, meanwhile, a continuous backdrop of medium-height housing permits the intervention to be closed off. Crowned by solar canopies, the section of the towers consists of a spiral of platforms or hanging gardens with the same materiality as the transportation hub, thus uniting the whole. The park deploys the triangular pattern in urban parterres that are transformed as they ascend into semi-rural biocultures, watered by drip irrigation. The park, transportation hub and five towers thus form a whole that seeks to integrate architecture and landscape by means of the coordinated development of the public space, the buildings and the infrastructures.

Details/Credits
•Project name: Transportation Hub, Urban Park and Five Housing Towers
•Location: Logroño, Spain
•Program: Railway station, bus station, parking and housing
•Area: Site: 213Ha • Railway Station: 8.000m2 • Sup platform: 19.000m2 • Parking: 18.000m2 • Bus station: 10.800m2 • Urbanization Area: 145.000m2 • Residential Area (Torres): 41.250m2 • Residential Area (other dwellings): 83.750m2
•Year: Competition: 2006. 1st prize
•More details: Budget Phase I (Underground + Railway Station): € 108,000,000 • Bus Station Budget: € 17,000,000
•Client: LIF • ADIF
•Project by: Abalos+Sentkiewicz Arquitectos
•Team: Principal designers: Iñaki Ábalos, Alfonso Miguel • Design team: Jorge Álvarez-Builla, Yeray Brito, Aaron Forest, Victor Garzón, Pablo de la Hoz, Ismael Martín, Laura Torres
•Others: Engineering: UTE Ineco-Sener (railway work) • Structure & Facilities: UTE Ineco-Sener (railway work) • Construction: SACYR (railway work) • Landscaping: Arquitectura Agronomía, Abalos + Sentkiewicz • Infographics: Neograma (Luis Cabrejas), Aaron Forrest, Pablo de la Hoz, Ismael Martin
•Text: Courtesy of Abalos+Sentkiewicz Arquitectos
•Images: Courtesy of Abalos+Sentkiewicz Arquitectos