Pedro Kok

OBJETIVO

A remarkable flat translucent surface organizes all the design of the ground level plan, supported by slender metallic columns and concrete walls. It is this roof that brings unity to different – and sometimes opposite – areas and functionalities, providing to the ground floor and overall building a clear degree of character – a not-so-common feat for underground structure with little to expose at street level. A bus station, the entrance for the subway platform and a set of technical areas share the ground level harmoniously. At the same time, most of its façades are basically non-existent, which not only provides a generous reception for commuters and other visitors from several directions, but also gives to users in the inside a panoptical view of the urban landscape.
The roof is a combination of delicate metallic beams (38 centimeters high) with square pieces of glass, covered by silk-screen layers of sunlight protection and various levels of transparency. The intent of such lightweight and white-painted structure was to soothe the pre-existent unfriendly environment. In the bus station area, it provides quality of natural light in almost all the work hours. The fume can find its way out of the roof by the overhead openings on the projection of the internal streets.
Also, the alignment of the beam grid is intentionally other from the concrete walls. This intentional break of orthogonality provides even more lightness to the structure, and also organizes the overall shape of the design.

CONTEXTO

São Paulo, the largest metropolis in South America, is both widespread over the landscape and densely populated. A crowd larger than the population of Uruguay commutes everyday through its system of roads, transportation corridors and metropolitan railways,
More than a simple piece of transportation infrastructure, the São Paulo – Morumbi metro station is a point of intermodal connection within the vicinities of the SPFC Stadium and other relevant urban references. Pedestrians, bikers and commuters walk daily through this place, either to start or end a trip across the city, or to transfer between bus services and railway.
The architectural concept of the station reflects the arrangement of the pendular movements that came out of the intersection between the local demands and metropolitan flows of the railway network. In a harsh environment for pedestrians, amid large, busy and heavy-loaded roads, full with truck and bus movement, the strategic disposition of vertical concrete planes channels the human flows, not only sheltering them from an aggressive landscape but also creating a generous space where one can easily find the way to the platforms, the urban bus station, or simply rest under an enjoyable shade. More like a shaded public square than a building, the commuters enter through openings larger than a simple set of doors located at the main pedestrian crosswalk. It departs from the traditional cave-like aspect of the heritage of underground stations and allows the filtered sunlight to go as deep as possible to the lower levels.