Washington Square Park

01 PROMPT

A great city should have a great public transit system that is socially, ecologically, economically, and culturally sustainable. It should connect the citizens well and promote a multi-modal mass transit system. It should be efficient – fast, reliable, of high capacity capability, and efficient energy use. It should be cheaper to use and economical to operate. It should be clean, safe, accessible and navigable. Such transit facilities revive neighborhood life and become hubs for play, work, learn, grow, create, shop, and eat. They also become an icon of or gateway for the neighborhood. They are places to represent the history and culture of the area. They can be designed to be pleasing and exciting places.

As a major US city straddling two states, Kansas City could certainly benefit from such an efficient mass transit system, like a Metro Rail System, for its socio-economic development. It could be a collaboration between the City of KCMO, City of KCKS, and other jurisdictions in the KC metropolitan area, managed by Kansas City Area Transportation Authority (KCATA).

In this Studio, you will design a Subway Rail Station, which will be a part of a network of Metro Rail System for Kansas City. You will team up with a peer student to work on this design problem. You will select an area/neighborhood in Kansas City to locate a subway station. Through research, you should demonstrate that the selected area benefits from having a mass transit facility located in the neighborhood. You will integrate these locations/sites into a hypothetical transit network (routes and station locations) for the entire KC Metro System.

- Kapila Silva

02 METRO MAP

The first step of the project was to develop a system of interconnected transit lines that would serve the Kansas City Metropolitan area. This was a collaborative process across the studio.

The resulting solution proposed eight total lines Briarcliff along with 101 stops, ranging from Shawnee to Independence, Overland Park to KCI Airport, the KC Zoo to the Legends, etc. While this could be a prohibitively expensive project, the proposed map explores what the possibilities and benefits could be of an idealized system. This system reaches to an extent even the furthest corners of the N. KC Kansas area. Within City urban areas, the line and stop density is high enough that car ownership could be a choice, not a necessity.

Each studio paring choose a specific stop to develop into a station and hub. We choose the intersection of the Purple and Yellow line at Washington Square Park.

03 PRECEDENTS

By nature, subway systems tend to be dark, confusing, and crowded places. Poor wayfinding, lack of orientation, and masses of waiting and disembarking passengers can make it difficult to navigate. Given the underground nature, it’s rare that there are visual connections between destinations, making it especially difficult to locate connecting platforms in stations with more than one line. A lack of visual connection with the outside world, both internally and externally, also add to the confusion. It’s not uncommon for subway stations to have amenities such as convenience stores and food courts connected to the tunnel system. These shops benefit from the passenger traffic, and the passengers benefit from the ability to make quick work of shopping trips during their travels. Though this analysis, we determined a few key elements that we felt were important to improving the overall experience.

1. Light wells that allow natural light as deep into the station as possible.2. Provide visual connections from platform to mezzanine to hub.

3. Connect amenities to hub while taking advantage of natural light and visual connection.

Looking at the context of our site, we wanted to bring not only these restaurant and shopping options into our hub, but to expand the draw of the neighborhood with a unique element. We landed on an indoor botanical garden.

Precedents that we looked at included:

1. Gardens by the Bay – Singapore

2. Estacion de Atocha – Madrid

3. Forneubanen Metro Line – Oslo

4. The Jewel, Changi International Airport – Singapore

5. Salesforce Transit Center – San Francisco

6. Seattle Spheres - Seattle

7. Union Station – Kansas City

04 SITE & CONTEXT ANALYSIS

The site is located at 100 E Pershing Rd in Kansas City, Missouri. Currently called Washington Square Park, the site includes a variety of paths that traverse the treecovered area, taking you through the Korean War Memorial and the park’s namesake, a statue of George Washington. The 5 – acre park is a roughly triangular shape, with the north – south length approaching 700 feet, and the east – west dimension approximately 600 feet.

The park drops off to an access road that connections Grand Blvd to the underground parking lot of Union Station and the surface lot just to the north. On the west side, the pedestrian bridge called The Link connects Union Station to the Weston Hotel. There are two elevator entries to this bridge on the western and southern edges of the park as well.

Transit connections include the terminal connection for the Ride KC streetcar, as well as numerous bus stops that connect both east – west and north – south bus lines.

The park is directly adjacent to Union Station, which serves as both a current Amtrak station as well as an entertainment destination, with attractions such as Science City, The Arvin Gottlieb Planetarium, and Escape Room KC. Directly to the south of the park is the Weston Hotel. To the southwest, the park has a fantastic view of the National WWI Museum and Memorial. To the south east is Crown Center Plaza, which includes a shopping center with various restaurants, shops, and attractions such as SEA LIFE Kansas City, LEGOLAND Discovery Center Kansas City, and Crown Center Ice Terrace.

Lastly, the region is filled with a number of corporate and other offices, including several law firms, architecture firms, and more. As a whole, the area surrounding Washington Square Park is a healthy mix of attractions, transit, office, and retail.

05 CONCEPT DESIGN

With the station lines mapped, site and context analyzed, and precedents reviewed, the process for conceptualizing the design began. Subway stations have several restraints that are not applicable to other project types, and it was necessary to solve those problems first.

The first step was to locate the underground station boxes in relation to site and the proposed lines. The final solution offered the best combination of construction feasibility, light access, and response to other contextual factors, such as the diagonal axis connecting the site to the WWI Memorial.

Final conceptual design focused heavily on this axis, creating plazas at the southwest and northeast corners. This had the benefit of also preserving as much of park as possible.

The overall design language draws on the repeating structural frame motif found in infrastructure overpasses and railway track ties, while creating cavernous interior spaces that are synonymous with train stations.

Lastly, the large interior space provides ample room for light to pass through the atrium into the station box below, with plants, shops, and people filling the space. The purple line, which is located underneath Pershing Road, is able to achieve a similar language through light wells that are located in the median.

06 PROGRAMMING

The interior layout circulates around the central atrium. This circulation path is where most of the plant displays are located so that visitors are able to enjoy the exhibits throughout the shopping experience.

Surrounding the circulation are all of the shops on levels 1 and 2. Here, the core also holds the hub’s bathrooms, elevators, emergency egress stairs, and service elevators. Level 0 functions in a similar manner, sharing the same circulation and core locations. Instead of retail, level 0 holds 8 restaurants and food court seating.

From a transportation point of view, accessing the stations is as simple as entering the hub, descending to the atrium floor, and then making a left or right depending on which line you are taking.

12 SYSTEMS AND LIFE SAFETY

HVAC Systems: The hub has a large volume, much of which is unoccupied atrium space. Therefore, the HVAC goal was to condition only the occupied space. Supply ducts are located around the perimeter of the atrium. Return ducts are located along the perimeter of the atrium in the ceilings above. The hub also makes use of the stack effect to reduce the impact of solar gain from the glass roof. The perimeter along the roof features a vent system that can be opened to release excess hot air.

Station Box Ventilation: Station box ventilation systems are incredibly complex. They involve street level supply and exhaust air and must account for both the pressure of trains entering and exiting the station box, but also where potential fires are exhausted out. The system involves fans large enough to pull exhaust in the opposite direction of a potential emergency egress situation allowing passengers to safely exit from between two stops.

Life Safety: The station box features both emergency egress paths that lead directly from the platform (or concourse) to the surface level, in addition to a separate staircase that provides direct access for first responders to enter the station box opposite of pedestrian flow.

13 CONSTRUCTION

The main structure of the project is made up of the series of repeating columns frames. The vertical portions are constructed from concrete and clad in a metal panel. The horizontal beams are constructed from a steel box truss and clad in the same metal panel to create a seamless connection. Clad steel trusses make up the sub-structure on top of that.

Each set of columns has a gutter that collects water and sends it down the columns, where it can either be stored for watering the interior plants or simply drained away.

A glass curtain wall finishes the envelope, with glass mullions as the structure.

Each of the main column frames extends into the station box below. The concrete structure provides both a visual effect and structure for the concourse. While each frame supports the glass roof, the rest of the hub’s walls, curtain walls, and floors are supported off of typical footings .

The station box below has 3 foot thick walls, plus a 4 foot thick wall that is cast in place to prevent collapse of the excavation during construction. This area also includes the above track ventilation area, which is fire seperated from the concourse with a masonry wall. This protects passengers in case of a fire on the track, while still allowing the ventilation system to exhaust the flames and smoke out of the station.