UPFRONT
SHAPED BY MOVEMENT There is no greater proof that ‘people make Glasgow’ than to see the city without its crowds. The city centre has been dormant, feeling like a stage without a play. Now, the commuters and shoppers are returning from their COVID-enforced isolation and the redeveloped Glasgow Queen Street station is there to welcome them. Edward Dymock is an Associate Architect at BDP’s Glasgow Studio and was Lead Architect for EGIP’s redevelopment of Glasgow Queen Street Station to the end of detail design. Here, he takes up the story.
Image ©Nick Caville
are, when they work C ities well, efficient systems
Image ©Nick Caville
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for living and, therefore, play an important role in our fight against climate change. It is in all of our interests that cities remain busy centres for living, commerce and leisure. Investment in our cities and their infrastructure must both facilitate and promote a greener way of life. To achieve both these things on its constrained city centre site, Glasgow Queen Street’s new architecture and design have been shaped by the movement of the people that will use it. Glasgow Queen Street, the third busiest station in Scotland, has been redeveloped to support greener travel and celebrate its city. The station has been expanded to cope with significant increases in passenger numbers, aiding the transition from car to green electric trains. Its dramatic new concourse encourages this transport choice. Before the redevelopment, I would describe Queen Street
Station as not only at the end of the line, it was at the end of its life. The station needed to be upgraded, reorganised and expanded to cope with the projected 90% increase in passenger footfalls over the next 30 years. The longer trains delivering those passengers required longer platforms. The constraints of the tunnel throat meant a significant part of the platform extensions would be southward, displacing the concourse from beneath the train shed to the area between its fanlight and West George Street. Despite the compulsory purchase of the bedroom wing of the Millennium Copthorne Hotel, partly for the safety zones associated with new buffers, the site was still constrained. The new concourse’s architecture had to work hard to provide the functionality required. A railway station concourse has two primary, and often contradictory, roles. It has to allow people to move and also to congregate. To achieve the former, we needed to ensure passengers would move around
