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Park & Train Station: A Hybrid

Throughout my observations and years of Architecture school, I noticed that one of Architecture’s greatest qualities is to gather people, and bring them together, depending on the program. Two typologies of building have this quality: train/subway stations as well as parks/places. It is this quality of Architecture that I want to explore through the creation of new type of light rail station/park, resulting from a cross-program of those two typologies.

One of the reasons why I chose these two typologies is because there have different purposes. One, the train station, is a place where people don’t come to stay, but instead, is a place of transition where users are only there for a short period of time and are usually moving at a fast pace. They gather only to leave very shortly after. On a second hand, Parks are places where people come to stay and spend longer periods of time. It is a place of leisure, contrarily to the punctuality of a train or subway station. However, the other reason why I chose these two typologies is also because they are both public spaces, and they are vital to the good functioning and development of any city. Therefore, the goal of this project is to create a new type of architecture that will enable the mixing of different paces, and usually separated uses. In order to do that, there are a few precedent studies that I will be looking at in the United States and Europe in order to understand the site integration and program of each so as to see how cross-programming can be developed. I chose Downtown Pittsburgh for the investigation of the project, more specifically the Liberty and Penn Ave Gateway at the point where the last metro stop currently is. I chose this particular site because I think that it has great potential for creating this hybrid condition, considering that there already is a subway stop there and a park.