BUS SHELTER, SYDNEY
Brief: Design proposal for a custom-made bus shelter. "The project is an alternative to the standard street furntiture used elsewhere in Sydney for bus stops and seating.  Standard street furniture is not suitable in this location due to the dense pedestrian traffic use and the narrowness of the footpath.  The proposed shelter should provide more shelter and present less impedement to pedestrians, it should respond to Town hall house..."
Location: Druitt Street, Sydney, Australia
Client: City of Sydney, City Projects Division
Stage: Concept design
Date: 2009

DESIGN OF THE GROUND TO MANAGE DIFFERENT PEDESTRIAN FLOWS

• Identification & management of the different flows and behaviours
• Flows are now separated: bus users, pedestrian traffic, cafe users
  
• Most of the pedestrians are intuitively dragged away from bottleneck
  
• Design creates specific static & dynamic areas
  
• Ground designed as a continuous folded surface for the purpose of identification and also as a holistic approach to design and graphics
  
• Integrated intuitive cues for pedestrians to behave accordingly to bus stop

SITE SPECIFIC PROJECT

• Existing trees are kept, 3D scanned, mapped, their structural properties investigated and used as a natural shape / scaffold in order to design a lightweight roof
• Public space below and lines of sight are then free of any structure.
  
• Town hall House is untouched                                             

RAIN SHELTER (More design for less material)

• A polygonal lightweight, translucent, photoluminescent PVC membrane to form shelter and hover above the footpath
• OPT.1: Points (where soft braces will be attached) will be located on the trees in order to generate a polygonal surface. The surface will form the shape of the suspended roof. Using this parametric approach to design the roof allows the position of the points to be investigated: the flexible polygonal geometry remains valid. Based on the tree mapping, the membrane can then be fabricated off-site in one piece and be quickly installed.
  Adjustable soft braces: The membrane will attached to the selected branches (identified points) through soft braces, able to respond to the slow growth of the trees
• OPT.2: Trees can also be doubled up by a metal exoskeleton, following the trunk and the main branches, in order to free the trees from any structural role.

 STEEP TOPOGRAPHY

• Seats follow contour lines 

LIGHTING FOR SAFE NIGHT TIME USE

• Sharp LED lights, photoluminescent membrane and graphics create a safe and atmospheric urban signal