Bold City: Students design innovative bus station

• located in a satellite hub
• close to the Claremont CBD and
• is central to the surrounding suburbs.

Key findings were that the surrounding public spaces were not developed and the areas failed to leverage off its proximity to the key taxi and train stations nearby. One of the site constraints was a very active Main Road that encountered cross over between pedestrian and vehicular movement. The site was large and exposed, and badly dealt with, highlighting the opportunities to reactivate the surrounding spaces and form healthy public spaces while providing a safer, well functioning bus transit centre.

The design is influenced by the layout and shape of the site which restricted how the buses would enter and leave the site hence the ‘loop’ design. The resulting design for the bus station is an open network of flexible, multi use station made up of pods that connect in a looped form. The form itself was located on site in such a way that it helped form public spaces that controlled and held a public space, whilst allowing for optimal pedestrian movement through the public spaces and the station, conscious of the existing buildings and routes. The building is designed for maximum sustainability and energy efficiency (determined by several solar heat gain tests, ‘wind tunnel’ testing), and most key in today’s buildings- adaptability of spaces. The architecture itself also communicated clearly that this building was a transit centre, a key consideration when creating public infrastructure.”