The designs for Melbourne’s five new underground stations for the Metro Tunnel, due to open in 2025, have been revealed by Victoria’s minister for Public Transport Jacinta Allan.
The stations were designed in collaboration between HASSELL, Weston Williamson and Rogers Stirk Harbour and Partners. This was following initial designs, released in 2016, from Grimshaw Architects.
The final designs make station layouts as easy as possible for passengers to navigate, while ensuring the structures and their surrounds set a new benchmark in architecture, sustainability and urban design.
The five new stations, to be known as North Melbourne, Parkville, State Library, Town Hall and Anzac, will draw on the local character of each location in their design and layout.
North Melbourne Station has an impressive large-scale brick arched entrance to reflect the area’s industrial heritage and skylights to enable natural light to filter down on the platforms and concourse.
In Parkville, a glass feature roof at the Grattan Street entrance provides passengers visiting this world class health and education precinct with a tree-lined view as well as natural light into the station concourse.
Grand entrances at State Library and Town Hall Stations in the heart of the CBD will create new meeting places, with redesigned laneways including cafes and retail shops. Below Swanston Street, passengers will enjoy wide and spacious platforms framed by sweeping arches, according to at the architect’s description.
A key element at Anzac Station in Domain will be an architecturally-designed canopy reaching up from below ground, providing both natural light and weather protection for the thousands of passengers each day who will move between trains and trams.
The new station designs will also deliver a number of new parks and open space, bicycle facilities and community plazas.
According to Jacinta Allan, “The final designs for the Metro Tunnel’s five new underground train stations will deliver the best passenger experience in stunningly designed and spacious settings”.
