Over the rails

The railway station, hub of one of the main means of transport, causes a wound within the urban landscape: the project attempts to analyze the situation of Torino Porta Nuova railway station (IT) through a comparative-parametric methodology to aimed at exploring the potential of this space currently abandoned to the passage of the railway line.

The project was initially focused on an on-site analysis of Japanese railway stations, as large containers of architectural knowledge, economic and social activity of the city. It then moved on to examples on a global scale that exploited the potential of unused space above the railway line, and finally deal with the case study of Torino Porta Nuova Railway station (IT). Through a comparative analysis of the literature it was possible to extract data, dimensions, layouts and schemes related to the structure of the station, its context and the specific use of the free space above the railway line. The different design phases have been addressed by exploiting the characteristics and aspects found through the case studies: structural crossing, stretching of connections, solution of the cut imposed by the tracks, functions and activities present or missing, morphological relationship with the context. Through an attention to the different characteristics of the site, a result capable of being an extension of the city but also a representation of its complexity was sought. Assuming in the first instance different scenarios able to collect the potentials, it was possible to proceed with the definition of the urban design project: a reticular surmounted by two infrastructural plates capable of containing a new urban intensity. The attention was focused not only on the dimensional solution but also on the morphological-contextual relationship with the site. The project proposal therefore attempts to apply the process here summarized by raising the city's plan above the railway line: the project aims to investigate and represent the high spatial potential of this site, reconnecting the urban fabric without affecting the efficiency of the transport system.