Inauguration of the new station took place in late 2012, six years after the restricted international competition was held. First phase of this winning entry is now completed – High speed train station in Logrono, by Abalos+Sentkiewicz Arquitectos, has finally welcomed its excited users. This is only the beginning – wider redevelopment project consists of bus station, parking, housing, park and urbanization of the area. The park and the urbanization are still under construction.
Advocating the idea that the train station should actually act as a catalyst for urban continuity instead of disruptive element causing urban and social segregation, Iñaki Abalos, Renata Sentkiewitz and Alfonso Miguel designed a successful prototype for the new hybrid typology. Due to the fact that inter-modal station represents great opportunity for city transformation – creation of new public spaces, promotion of various means of mobility and an opportunity to create whole new topography of the given area, architects used this project as a tool for intensifying the experience of the city as a collective process.
The undoubted necessity of the new landscapes of energy and infrastructural production calls for new approaches. Abalos+Sentkiewicz Arquitectos insist on thermodynamic design – in an era of rising environmental awareness, traditional tectonic model had to be replaced with the biotechnical one, allowing the architect to rethink its buildings as living organisms in constant exchange with the environment. The nature of this approach requires interdisciplinary team of experts, however implying positive transformation of the role of the architect.
Uniqueness of this particular project lies in the fact that it has been developed through seeking intensity in relations between infrastructure and urbanism, landscape and architecture, ecology and economy, therefore establishing whole new model of management, directed to innovation in all stages of the process. In this sense it may be argued that it is a pioneering experience both on landform buildings as well as ecological urbanism.
