Railway station, The Netherlands
23 juni 2022
Project: Railway station, Harderwijk | The Netherlands
Architect: Group A Architects, Rotterdam | The Netherlands
Fabricator: Aluform System GmbH & Co. KG, Bernsdorf | Germany
Installer: Bijlbouw B.V., Alblasserdam | The Netherlands
Façade System: Tray Panels Special Design
Year of Construction: 2016
Product: ALUCOBOND® PLUS sparkling White Silver 884
TACKLING THE TRANSIT DESERT
The Netherlands is a land of cyclists, of that there is no doubt. The train network in this densely populated country is also excellent and equally well-known. But there are, in fact, also areas in the Netherlands located in a transit desert. That is the case in Harderwijk in Gelderland. In Harderwijk, you encounter a text book example of the Netherlands: a scattered polder landscape and low brick houses lining narrow streets around the big church or in Dutch, ?Grote Kerk?. Old windmills here, low-rise 1970s buildings there. One of the low buildings is the old railway station where trains depart for Amsterdam Centraal only about 50 kilometres away as the crow flies. The journey, however, still takes one and a half hours and a change of trains before you reach the destination. Dutch railways are now planning to extend the network, add new routes, operate more frequent services and provide more attractive stations. The railway company is banking on 246 billion passenger-kilometres per year by 2040. In other words, every Dutch person will travel an average of almost 40 kilometres by train every day, including the people in the provinces. That is the reason why Harderwijk Railway Station has been modernised, and the architects at Group A in Rotterdam transformed the ground-level junction into a multi-level traffic hub where car, bus, train and bicycle lanes are separate but interlinked. To ensure that the interlacing system of lanes did not adversely impact the quality of the public space, their design for transitions, level changes and the square area is generous and light, featuring several, delicate customised bridges. They planned a sweeping, large open staircase, extensive glass roofing and a glass shop frontage for the station itself. The closed surfaces of the station are clad with White Silver ALUCOBOND® tray panels which reflect the daylight and, at night, the square’s carefully planned lighting. The heart of the new station is its roof, which extends way out over the forecourt. It too is clad in silver-white, highly reflective ALUCOBOND® panels. Especially in the evening, the spotlights and light reflections on the canopy make it sparkle in the darkness, clearly highlighting the waiting area on the forecourt and adding a touch of theatre.