Valencia Central Station

GilBartolome Architects has participated in a contest to create the new north station for Valencia, Spain. The old North station has become obsolete, and ADIF wants to expand it's capacity, as well as improve it's high-speed capabilities. The contest is framed in a wider effort by the city and the central government to renew and bury the rail infraestructure.

The proposal closes the wound in the urban fabric between the Eixample, Extramurs and Ciutat Vella districts. Following the contest guidelines of creating and underground station, the project chooses not to create a new building, avoiding the cost and negative impact of a new infraestructure station building. Instead, we focus development underground, creating new entrances and turning the old station building into the new icon of Valencia, redistributing the hall into the sation and around it, with comercial spaces, a gastro zone and green spaces.

The new urban space will enhance and promoting the "Medterranean living style" focusing in life in the city and human interaction. For this the comercial spaces and habitable spaces are designed to benefit each other; "The eyes of commerce", in the words of Jane Jacobs. We create a new urban space within the plot. The  redesigned Station plaza connects to a Lateral Plaza with bars and restaurants, that leads into the urban living room, composed of plazas, playgrounds and green spaces. This design of spaces and plazas flows into the central Park, designed for family activities, following the succesful model of "Gulliver", placed in the Gardens of Turia, this time inspired in the popular figure of "Tirant lo Blanc"

The main access to the station itself is from this historic building of the North station, with auxiliary accesses along the whole intervention. All access points lead to the same vibrant space underground, a commercial area, three stories high that leads into the exchange transport hub. The underground space turns its constructive elements, such as the pillars, skylights, floors and partitions into true protagonists of a sober, poetic and rational design.