Thank you to six students who submitted ideas about a healthy and futuristic train station for the future! We were very impressed by the different approaches that everyone took. We will give feedback to each of the authors on this blog, and we will also be including ideas from three commended submissions that we have selected to be particularly interesting. Stay tuned over the coming days to see more comments on each and every one of the schemes!
Each of the commended submissions have a different aspect that made us want to develop and interpret their ideas further. Today we are sharing our thoughts on the commended submission of Manahal Shafique. You can see Manahal’s submission in the picture above.
While some of the other schemes were more technically detailed, or had strong conceptual elements, Manahal’s submission was very strong for its vibrant and recognisable colours and cheer. If you picture a typical suburban rail station around the UK, the majority of them will be dull, muted colours without expressive and dramatic forms. Manahal’s design is the complete opposite. In times of COVID-19 lockdown, it is a welcome and cheerful thing to see not just the vibrant colours but also the dramatic forms in her design. This really is a different conceptualisation of emotion and feeling that we haven’t seen so much in UK rail design.
We very much like the organic integration of colour and form that gives the sketch an overall coherence. The train has an organic shape, the station gardens and buildings have organic shapes, and everything feels a part of the same “world.”
This principle of imitating organic forms in architecture is called “biophilic design” and we would encourage you to learn more about that and feed your interest!
The idea of tram-style level tracks and the bridge to interconnect different elements works well with the idea of creating a friendly and accessible place, and the functions she proposes make sense.
A few tips for you to continue growing your skills and your ideas:
There is so much life here, but you haven’t made an evocative title. Could you create a name for your design? That always helps us to refine and focus the concept.
You describe steps to a beautiful garden in which people can relax, but we don’t see a lush garden. It could be an interesting enhancement to consider how that garden might relate to the station.
For the buildings, the patterns and forms are interesting. To refine your abilities further, could you find examples of plants or other forms in nature that you can study and analyse to create more refined and developed patterns? It could be a good way for you to create even more consistency and also sophistication in your shapes.
Your aesthetics have some relation to one of the other commended proposals. As we develop the sketches further we will see how we can take some of the most vibrant aspects of what you’ve done and bring them into an overall language of materials and form that can be perhaps balanced with some calm moods and also rationalised forms.
Keep up the good work! DaeWha and team
