Zaha Hadid Architects and Esplan have won the competition to design the new terminal of the Rail Baltic railway at Ülemiste, Tallinn. Their proposal will be the starting point of the Rail Baltic line connecting Tallinn, Riga, and Vilnius with the European high-speed rail network.
Rail Baltic is an 870 km electrified railway from Tallinn in Estonia to the Lithuanian-Polish border. The ‘Ülemiste terminal’ is a connecting public bridge that can be used by the local community as well as multi-modal transport hub.
The project is a modular structural system built in phases which allow ongoing operations on the rail lines throughout construction.
Estonia’s Minister of Economic Affairs and Infrastructure says, “I have been constantly informed about the developments in the Ülemiste area and in light of the works presented to the public today, I am more than convinced that the area is becoming one of the most attractive and, in terms of infrastructure, synergistic in Tallinn. A true multi-modal transport hub is emerging, with rail, bus and air traffic coming together there in the future.”
The planning and concept design of the project are determined by the different circulation routes that pass through the building in order to enhance the parallelism of transportation systems and “aid navigation and the smooth integration of bus, tram and rail lines that intersect at the terminus”.
https://www.designboom.com/architecture/zaha-hadid-tallinn-ulemiste-railway-terminal-public-bridge-estonia-11-07-2019/
https://www.archdaily.com/928022/zha-and-esplan-win-competition-to-design-the-new-terminal-for-rail-baltica#