Aims
Railway station areas can play a crucial role in promoting sustainable development if integrated with cities and be fluctuation-responsive through effective urban design. However, during the design stage, assessing the station areas' performance, of which user satisfaction is indicative, is challenging due to methodological limitations. Agent-based simulation (ABS) is promising as it can link spatial features with agents' behavior features. This research questions to what extent ABS can help assess the urban design of station areas.

Methods
This paper adopts the user pyramid as the theoretical framework, which outlines five types of user needs: safety, speed, ease, comfort, and experience. The paper selects indicators linking satisfaction and spatial features at the district and building levels. These indicators are measured in the simulation of the station system using digital tools, including MassMotion and Python scripts. The theory, indicators, and tools, in combination, serve as an assessment framework. Rotterdam Central Station is used as a case to demonstrate how the framework works.

Results
The framework is capable of assessing design alternatives by identifying changes in user satisfaction. It can be applied on the district level (at a scale of 250 m) with substantial details to inform design decision-making, and it is useful during the design stage when only limited data is available. This paper strengthens the scientific knowledge of railway station areas through the multidisciplinary literature review that translates user needs for urban design use, and it advances the digital means to visualize user satisfaction affected by design.@en

What does your local station mean to you? For some, it represents opportunity: the chance to go anywhere. Others might actively dislike the noise, the crowds, the aesthetic... Or perhaps you never think too deeply about stations. But they definitely affect you, according to Dr. Manuela Triggianese. “At stations, all scales come together: from the building and its elements, to the neighbourhood, the city, region, even country. They are involved in every aspect of urban life.”@en

With the growing demand for sustainable accountability, the European Directive 2014/24/EU (EU 2014) pushes architects to deliver Building Information Models (BIM) as a part of procurement processes for public buildings. In the Netherlands, BIM model data is relevant to the building permitting process, which involves an environmental performance calculation (MPG). This assessment takes into consideration the embodied carbon of materials in a building. Although this analysis is performed by a qualified expert in late design phases, architects benefit from integrating carbon data in early design decision-making. Design methods supported by Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) values are needed before involving expert collaborators, and not only when applying for a building permit. The existing carbon assessment tools require detailed data from BIM models, which are often not available at early design phases. Simplified tools have been discussed in theory, and explored in their potential applications, however, there lacks scientific literature discussing the hurdles designers face in their attempt to create such tools in practice, for their internal use throughout early design phases. This paper focuses on the architecture professional practice and design methods supported by digital and computational technologies, regarding embodied carbon data. It investigates the challenges in integrating embodied carbon data in the design workflow, through the development of a digital tool made by designers, for designers. This paper conducts an empirical investigation within a Rotterdam-based architecture office, with a broad portfolio in BIM usage and public building projects, to identify and categorize the factors affecting carbon data integration into the design workflow. It proposes a taxonomy of challenges within the architecture office, to better communicate the designer’s needs to the data providers and software developers with architects as a target user. Amongst the bottlenecks encountered are: access to data inclusiveness), data literacy and connecting data usage with design decision-making.@en

With the growing demand for sustainable accountability, the European Directive 2014/24/EU (EU 2014) pushes architects to deliver Building Information Models (BIM) as a part of procurement processes for public buildings. In the Netherlands, BIM model data is relevant to the building permitting process, which involves an environmental performance calculation (MPG). This assessment takes into consideration the embodied carbon of materials in a building. Although this analysis is performed by a qualified expert in late design phases, architects benefit from integrating carbon data in early design decision-making. Design methods supported by Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) values are needed before involving expert collaborators, and not only when applying for a building permit. The existing carbon assessment tools require detailed data from BIM models, which are often not available at early design phases. Simplified tools have been discussed in theory, and explored in their potential applications, however, there lacks scientific literature discussing the hurdles designers face in their attempt to create such tools in practice, for their internal use throughout early design phases. This paper focuses on the architecture professional practice and design methods supported by digital and computational technologies, regarding embodied carbon data. It investigates the challenges in integrating embodied carbon data in the design workflow, through the development of a digital tool made by designers, for designers. This paper conducts an empirical investigation within a Rotterdam-based architecture office, with a broad portfolio in BIM usage and public building projects, to identify and categorize the factors affecting carbon data integration into the design workflows. It proposes a taxonomy of challenges within the architecture office, to better communicate the designer's needs to the data providers and software developers with architects as a target user. Amongst the bottlenecks encountered are: access to data (data inclusiveness), data literacy and connecting data usage with design decision-making.@en

The LCS DATA-HUB is an interactive report for the LCS (Low-Carbon Stations) Workshop. The workshop held in March 12th of 2024, in TU Delft, gathered experts from academia, industry and public authorities to exchange knowledge and experiences pertinent to the integration of data (embodied carbon) in design of the built environment.

The event “Low-Carbon Station Workshop: A roadmap for integrating carbon data in cross-scale station design" was organized by PhD Candidate Halina Veloso e Zarate and Assistant Professor Dr. Manuela Triggianese, as methodological support to one of three empirical investigations of Zarate's PhD research.

The workshop aimed to explore the integration of data about embodied carbon in construction materials through low-carbon design methodologies for architecture and urban design, with a specific focus on stations and station areas.

In this platform, you can find the documentation of the event and navigate through the data that supported the hands-on design case of Lombardijen Station.@en

This article explores the pivotal role of design as a decision-making tool within multi-stakeholder collaborations, focusing on the early phases of the Rotterdam Central Railway Station and its surroundings project. Spanning from 1996, when it gained National Key Project status, to 2007, when construction commenced, this period precedes the preliminary design, during which the design process becomes the primary method of collaboration among multiple stakeholders, including designers and clients involved in the station area’s development.

After introducing the post-war reconstruction of the station area and the ‘Platform Zero’ experiment, this article defines three key stages of design in the initial phase, each of which left a distinct mark on the station project. These stages are:

– From 1996 to 2001: Design for political communication.

– From 2002 to 2004: Parallel design.

– From 2004 to 2007: Design co-creation and integration.

To provide a comprehensive view of the design’s development, this article includes insights from conversations with architects and planners engaged in the process. In a dynamic exchange between various stakeholders and designers, the evolution of Rotterdam Central Station’s design reveals how political decisions have been informed by thorough design studies, offering a platform for robust discourse on critical issues.

@en

Introduction: In China, Station-City Integration is proposed by the design academy in China to solve problems and add value. This research focuses on urban design for the redevelopment of Old Major Railway Stations in Megacities in China.

Problems & Goals: From our focused cases, two problems are discovered: Stuckness and congestion on peak days, Space underuse on normal days. Two goals are proposed correspondingly: Mobility Resilience and Public Space Flexibility.

Knowledge Gaps: Theoretical and practical knowledge are lacking for the proposed goals. The component words of the goals all have rich meanings. Some of them have related assessment tools and design recommendations.

Research Questions: For urban design research and practice, how can Mobility Resilience and Public Space Flexibility be defined, assessed, and designed?

Deliverables: The deliverables will be Concept Definitions, Assessment Frameworks, and Design Principles. The Concept Definitions offer researchers a new way to see the Station City problems. The Assessment Frameworks offer researchers a new tool to assess the Station City problems through different dimensions. It can also be used for evaluations during the iterative design process. The Design Principles can be used for the scheme establishment.

Methods: For Concept Definitions, papers about mobility, resilience, public space, and flexibility were examined to propose definitions. For Assessment Framework, available technologies & data will be tested. For Design Principles, case studies of the best practices will be conducted.

Relevance: Scientifically, the Problem Identifications show a creative way of framing research problems between specification and generalization. These Concept Definitions show a solid way of transferring knowledge from other disciplines to urban design fields. Societally, the Problems Identifications and Concept Definitions set a starting point for practitioners to take action. The Assessment Frameworks and Design Principles are practical tools for designers.@en

After a decade marked by the renewal of grand European high-speed railway stations, today, a second wave of station renewal is at hand. This paper argues the importance of the train station in the historical development of smaller cities. Based on comparative research of recent best practices, the contemporary urban design challenges of smaller and medium-sized stations are explored. The paper concludes that the station is no longer shaped as a monolithic, architectural cathedral, as for the grand stations, but interweaves the world of the passer-by with that of the local inhabitant as a system of public infrastructure and facilities.

@en

As Covid-19 evidence, urban density[*] proved to be a health risk factor, reclaiming the rethinking for higher sustainability. The investigation on post pandemic strategies in the metropolitan cities of Milan and Rotterdam shows emergent modes of spatial re-appropriation towards better risk adaptiveness. Come evidenza del Covid-19, la densità urbana* si è dimostrata un fattore di rischio per la salute, accelerando la riflessione verso una maggiore sostenibilità. L’indagine sulle strategie post-pandemiche nelle città di Milano e Rotterdam mostra emergenti modalità di riappropriazione spaziale di aree pubbliche residuali per una migliore capacità di adattamento al rischio.@en

In contemporary mobile society, stations are becoming much more than just a place to get on and off trains or other modes of transport. Stations are places to work, do business, meet, shop and relax. They not only link different modes of transport at several levels (local, regional, national and international) but are also ‘urban’ connectors within the city and its surrounding region, as well as catalysts of urban transformation. A development or redevelopment project for a station can therefore also be used to promote high-quality architecture and the revitalization of city districts. The main goals are on the one hand finding an optimum mix of transport modalities for every situation and making the whole station complex as seamless as possible for the users, and on the other to address the need to rethink the ‘intermodal station’ as an urban place, as an attractive and liveable area with room for ‘innovative’ design solutions as well as development and redevelopment projects and densification. This means that a higher degree of flexibility must be incorporated, finding ways to deal with the often complicated governance structure inside and outside the station building and its surroundings. @en

Booklet containing the program of the event Stations of the Future that took place in Paris on the 15th and 16th March at Atelier Néerlandais.@en

Stations as landmarks, districts and transfer machines.@en