Dutch studio Wurk has accomplished an underwater bicycle park subsequent to Amsterdam’s central station, with shiny white interiors submerged 9 metres beneath the floor of its well-known canals.
Linked on to town’s metro and railway system by way of six escalators, the underwater area is reportedly the primary of its variety on this planet, offering parking for round 7,000 bikes.
Wurk was awarded the undertaking following a contest by Amsterdam’s metropolis council in 2018 and sought to make the underground facility a brilliant and welcoming extension of the city realm above, which has additionally been topic to a wider regeneration undertaking.
“The bicycle parking is an element of a bigger undertaking often called De Entree, which is renovating all the space of the station,” defined Wurk founding accomplice Oriol Casas Most cancers.
“Important within the renovation was redefining the general public area by growing the quantity of water,” he added. “Celebrating the monumental character of the station and its place on an autonomous island was additionally a robust ambition.”
The trail that navigates customers into and thru the bike park is lined with a 140-metre-long glass panel, alongside maps and nautical-themed artworks created in collaboration with design workplace Multitude and the Amsterdam Museum.
This tough stone-and-concrete entrance offers approach to an unlimited corridor of shiny white mushroom columns that body the bicycle parking areas, illuminated by oculus-style mild fittings that simulate underwater skylights.
“The design is a tribute to the water,” explains Most cancers. “All varieties are fluid. Partitions, columns, stairs, and glass partitions are curved.”
Wurk selected this contrasting materials palette to imitate the sensation of opening a craggy oyster shell to disclose its clear white inside.
“The doorway is an extension of the general public area with darkish and sturdy supplies like pure stone and basalt, just like the shell of the oyster,” he defined.
“The inside is brilliant, mild and white like the inside of the oyster, with a central ‘pearl’ of curved glass facades the place the services of the concierges are positioned.”
An automatic system permits cyclists to make use of the digital gates with their transport playing cards, enabling swift and environment friendly motion alongside the curved routes.
Comparable bicycle parks have just lately been accomplished in a number of Dutch cities to be able to accommodate the large variety of bicycles parked across the nation’s stations.
In 2019, Ector Hoogstad Architecten created the world’s largest bicycle park beneath Utrecht Central Station, offering underground space for storing for 12,656 bicycles, whereas The Hague’s “museum-like” bicycle park was accomplished in 2021.
The pictures is by Aiste Rakauskaite.
