Pusan High Speed Rail Station

The brief called for a landmark structure to replace the existing facility on the edge of the old city - a new railway station serving the TGV high-speed link between Seoul and Pusan.

The architectural response is a highly expressive steel roof structure that rises from track level, where it provides a canopy over the platforms, to enclose a five-storey booking hall and offices straddling the tracks and providing a new connection between areas of the city previously divided by the railway. The flowing form of the roof evokes the idea of movement. Inside the concourse area, the roof rises to a height of 9m, with direct connections from the concourse to the metro system, parking areas, taxis and bus station, as well as providing pedestrian routes linking a series of high-rise office developments around the harbour.

The roof is, in structural terms, a corrugated folded plate arching in two directions and providing a high degree of economy in the use of steelwork - it is constructed of standardised components, so that much of it can be assembled off-site in prefabricated sections and the construction process accelerated. The form of the roof over the concourse assists the movement of air within the building. A low velocity ventilation system is used to cool the space in preference to air conditioning.

On the city side, the approach to the station is across a new piazza and up a monumental flight of steps. There is a strong civic and urbanistic impulse behind the scheme as well as a response to a practical transport brief.