An architect's view of the station user experience

This paper reports a preliminary start to research into guidelines for the design of rail stations by architectural researchers new to the building type and its literature. The study examines a de novo investigation into station design undertaken by 42 Master of Architecture students. In preparation for a later transit design project, students were asked to examine the rail experience and to propose twelve possible improvements to rail station design based on their experience. The design ideas were presented as simply annotated ‘postcards’. This student study is compared with two more conventional starting points for literature based research. The first is a current technical Station Design Guide prepared by a rail operator, Queensland Rail. The second is a broader range of literature sources including histories and contemporary analyses of the building type as well as broader analyses from transport policy, planning and urban design vantages. This very quick examination of three possible research starting points is severely constrained in time, but does allow some initial discussion of the scope and possible structure for subsequent research. The recording of variation between these three sources is not remarkable, but the depth of the differences is noteworthy. Most importantly, the study offers a salutary insight into cultural differences that characterise the rail operators, and the engineering, planning and architectural researchers drawn in this research project. These comparisons show that the current design guide is very narrow in scope and highly simplistic regarding the broader issues of rail station design. A second significant question is to what extent does the student work represent the naivety of youth, or a significant generational change of values.