Beijing South Station, China

Beijing South's new railway station is a dynamic new landmark station that has helped transform Beijing into the global metropolis for the 2008 Olympics Games.

Two new subway lines and a new airport rail line, together with a new high-speed rail link and highway to Tianjin opened in time for the Games. At a cost of over $41bn, Beijing's Olympic Games infrastructure investment alone surpasses that of any other total Olympic investment to date.

High-speed China

The high-speed rail network is an opportunity for China to show that it is a modern, progressive country and open and willing to collaborate with international designers with strong conceptual and international design standards to the nation's rail stations.

Scheduled to open on 1 August 2008, the station will be a key piece of railway infrastructure and is considered to be 'national-level priority. On a more local level, the station is expected to be a growth catalyst for the south Beijing neighbourhood.

Beijing South Station has a catchment area of 270 million people and once the high-speed rail network is fully built it is estimated to need to accommodate 287,000 passenger movements a day.

Similar to a modern airport, arrivals and departures take place on separate levels, allowing for direct and efficient passenger interchanges.

Easy connections can be made to underground services at the lowest level and to different modes of transport which include 800 basement car parking spaces, 40 taxi and 30 bus pick-up bays. A perimeter ring road ensure drop offs can be made all around the station and provides a solution to the vehicular flow.

Beijing South Station design

The station demanded a unifying form as an integral architectural solution to its complex functional and contextual requirements. Its structure is that of a simple ellipse with a dome shape in profile and as well an open plan arrangement that gives generous visual clarity, it has a well-defined, people-oriented layout.

The design is loosely based on the nearby Temple of Heaven and incorporates traditional Chinese architectural motifs.

Angled at 45° off Beijing's geometric grid, Farrells used a bold green spine to bisect the station, part of a bigger urban design move into the station master plan to resolve the juxtaposed geometry and create a link to the city.

The central hall will be wide enough to fit a Boeing 747 with the covered roof area being the size of 20 football pitches.

The station has five levels and a number of entrances, exits, waiting areas and interchange zones. All of the 28 platforms are over 500m in length. The site area is 940,000m² and the gross floor area is 296,543m².