Good design of Transport Infrastructure - a minister's view

[whole diary]

[paul7575]

There is no H&C entrance near this proposed cube, surely?   The new H&C entrance is a couple of hundred yards away towards Bishops Bridge.

Apart from being a near neighbour, it isn't really transport infrastructure at all.  Ground floor entrances to tube stations below modern blocks don't really count do they, there are dozens of fairly anonymous tube entrances all over central London.

Paul

[stuving]

There is no H&C entrance near this proposed cube, surely?   The new H&C entrance is a couple of hundred yards away towards Bishops Bridge.

Apart from being a near neighbour, it isn't really transport infrastructure at all.  Ground floor entrances to tube stations below modern blocks don't really count do they, there are dozens of fairly anonymous tube entrances all over central London.

Paul

I was thinking of the exit at the London Street end of the taxi rank - if it's still there. The developers of this cube appear to want to open up the (as of now) main entrance to London Street, but again I don't know if that's part of the plan for the station already.

[Noggin]

Quote "to a new Bakerloo line tube station."

Is Paddington getting a new Bakerloo tube station?

New entrance, but I think the plan is that they rebuild the concourse as part of the project. 

[paul7575]

I was thinking of the exit at the London Street end of the taxi rank - if it's still there. The developers of this cube appear to want to open up the (as of now) main entrance to London Street, but again I don't know if that's part of the plan for the station already.

Ah right, I see what you mean now, basically at the east end of the side extension for the new rank.  Google street view doesn't show that open, but may be well out of date.

The area of the render between the station and the new building seems to ignore the level change, isn't the station approach ramp a good few metres below London St level as it gets down to the start of the concourse?   I wonder if they can remove the need for road vehicles to use that ramp as they do now...

Paul

[Surrey 455]

The most recent Google Streetview was for Jun2016. The Bakerloo station was closed for several months for maintenance but is now open again.

[Rhydgaled]

the architectural orthodoxy seems to be that new additions/extensions/adaptations MUST be in a strikingly different design to what was their before so that the original architecture is not compromised by blending something new in  with the old. (ie so you can see what is new and what is old)

That's an interesting point. There is something to be said for making clear which parts are original, but I've yet to see it done in a way that is sympathetic to the original structures. Therefore, I think I would in many cases tend towards recording any alterations in great detail so that interested parties could find out what is original and then building in a similar style to the original. Perhaps new parts built to the same style but with slightly different materials would work; at Shrewsbury I seem to recall that an alternative design for the new waiting room at Shrewbury (not my pic) would have used blue bricks, which may or may not have worked with the red brick of the existing station (what they ended up building certainly doesn't seem to work from the photos I've managed to find, although I've not seen it in person). In that case I objected to the new waiting room planned not just on the grounds of aesthetics but also because it appeared to offer less space than the previous one (again not my pic), which itself wasn't big enough, and would be draughty with pepole using the lift and walking through the waiting room to reach the platform. The old Shrewsbury waiting room shows another way of building something (presumably) non-original and making it stand out from the original buidling. The colour doesn't work, but I think if that had been a dark, varnished, wood it may have looked in-keeping and yet still have been distingishable from the rest of the station.

[Bmblbzzz]

1. During my time working on LUL^▸ (London Underground Ltd) tunnel cooling, I saw the aerodynamic drag figures for tube stock of various types. Those with flush doors had half that of stock with pocket doors. In tunnels both were doubled. Drag goes up with the square of the velocity so above 100mph, it becomes a serious energy consumer. I'm surprised (or perhaps not) that the new GW^▸ (Great Western) stock does not seem to be optimised in this respect. With modelling, the life costs (and Carbon emission) are easily computed and are phenomenal when capitalised over 40 years.

This was the first thing that occurred to me in terms of pocket vs flush doors. It's nice to see it confirmed by someone who actually knows! I suppose hinged doors and concertina doors would be other forms of flush doors. Not sure if I've ever seen concertina doors on a train but I can't think why not, when they're very common on buses.

[PhilWakely]

Not sure if I've ever seen concertina doors on a train but I can't think why not, when they're very common on buses.

Class 142s and 143s have concertina doors - but then again they are just buses on rails!

[ChrisB]

As it's on topic here - anyone worked out what sort of doors are being fitted to Scotrail's HSTs^▸ (High Speed Train)? It's not mentioned in the quote on the Scotrail HST topic.

Question here as it's doors we're talking about!

[1st fan]

1. During my time working on LUL^▸ (London Underground Ltd) tunnel cooling, I saw the aerodynamic drag figures for tube stock of various types. Those with flush doors had half that of stock with pocket doors. In tunnels both were doubled. Drag goes up with the square of the velocity so above 100mph, it becomes a serious energy consumer. I'm surprised (or perhaps not) that the new GW^▸ (Great Western) stock does not seem to be optimised in this respect. With modelling, the life costs (and Carbon emission) are easily computed and are phenomenal when capitalised over 40 years.

This was the first thing that occurred to me in terms of pocket vs flush doors. It's nice to see it confirmed by someone who actually knows! I suppose hinged doors and concertina doors would be other forms of flush doors. Not sure if I've ever seen concertina doors on a train but I can't think why not, when they're very common on buses.

And FGW^▸ (First Great Western)/GWR^▸ (Great Western Railway) have/had notices above the door windows on the HST^▸ (High Speed Train) saying something along the lines of please close the window which (by reducing drag) saves the environment.

[Tim]

Not sure if I've ever seen concertina doors on a train but I can't think why not, when they're very common on buses.

Class 142s and 143s have concertina doors - but then again they are just buses on rails!

they are pretty unrealiable on those classes.

[stuving]

From Dezeen:

Renzo Piano slashes height of controversial Paddington skyscraper
Jessica Mairs | 18 July 2016 15 comments

Renzo Piano has cut 54 storeys from his stalled Paddington Pole skyscraper to create a new proposal for a "floating" glass cube on the site by London's Paddington station.

Piano's new 18-storey building, redubbed the Paddington Cube, comprises a 14-storey office block raised 12 metres above a large public space.

The cube would be supported by slender poles over a five-storey podium containing shops and restaurants with subterranean access to a new Bakerloo line tube station.


"When you exit the station you will see a clear floating cube levitating above the ground," said Renzo Piano and Joost Moolhuijzen of Renzo Piano Building Workshop about the new design.

"We are obsessed with lightness and have given the building a sense of flying above the ground and defying the laws of gravity," they added. "The facade will be crystalline, like a fine lace of steel and glass in a clear pattern like the beautiful arches and skylights of Brunel's station."

It has just been announced that the Mayor will not, after all, be calling in the application to build the Cube. So presumably shovels are being sharpened right now.