Stazione di Porta Susa - Italy - 2010

In all cities the construction of a new railway station is a special event, if only in that unlike an airport or other man-made transportation facilities, it constitutes a “port within the heart” of the city itself.
In Italy station construction has marked the stages in the modernization of the country; the stations of the main Italian cities were the starting point of the “journey” and as such were often constructed as authentic monuments.
The new stations that are emerging due to the advent of high-speed rail transportation are being located in the cities according to different criteria than in the past, often being designed to reunite parts of the city separated by the railway lines and to contribute to their redevelopment and enhancement. Some of the world’s leading contemporary architects have been commissioned to design stations that are full of life, light and sound -in a word, stations with a definite soul, and one that they are able to project: no longer an anonymous “non-place”, a desolate point of transit and metaphor for lone travel, the new stations are “the place”, and, similar to how a town square encourages aggregation, dialogue and leisure, they embody the very concept of urban community life. Railway stations will be home to bookstores, cafes and shops and become venues for music, art and culture so that they come to be looked on by the public as places in which social relations are played out.
On the horizon are the new HS stations of Naples Afragola designed by Zaha Hadid, Rome Tiburtina designed by ABDR-Paolo Desideri; Florence Belfiore designed by Norman Foster; Bologna designed by Ricardo Bofill; Reggio Emilia designed by Santiago Calatrava and Turin Porta Susa designed by Arep Group. Meanwhile, plans and works are in progress for the redevelopment of the historic mainline stations to adapt them to new management and operational requirements and enhance the cultural heritage they represent.

The Project of the new station Porta Susa in Turin, is part of the urban renewal plan implemented by the City of Turin and of the high speed rail extention In Italy. The railway tracks are quadrupled and buried to create an new avenue (Corso Inghilterra), reconnecting two parts of the city currently separated. The new building is to be Turin main railways Station.

The station presents itself as an arcade of glass and steel 385 meters long, supported by 108 arches each different from the other.
The Roofing of Torino Porta Susa Station is a glass shell that covers a steel frame composed of transverse arches (perforated H sections). These arches are interconnected by a secondary longitudinal structure made of rectangular tubes.
The street entrances to the station interrupt the continuous metallic structure with a longitudinal beam resting on the outer arches and taking up the horizontal axes of the disrupted arches.
The expansion joints of the metal structure delimit structural blocks of 43.20m.
The stability of the structure is secured by transverse struts (on Corso Inghilterra side) and longitudinally by 3.60m wide Saint Andrew crosses positioned in the middle of the structural blocks.

Center to center of arches: 3.60 m
Span of the arches: 32 m
Heights vary
Minimum height: 12.60 m
Maximum height: 20.40 m