Guest Experience
HS2 Old Oak Common
– Guest Experience
Europe
ABOUT
Old Oak Common will be a Category A – National Hub station, a significant interchange station. The station is divided across two concourses: one delivering customers to Birmingham via HS2 platforms, and the other for the Great Western Mainline. The station is built upon a concrete box over the platforms, which has created a huge public realm area above, spanning a length of over 800m, which is the same height as the Burj Khalifa in Dubai.Trivandi have collaborated with Wilkinson Eyre and the WSP multi-disciplinary design team, including Mima, to provide the wayfinding strategy for the HS2 Phase 1 station.
SERVICES
- Strategic Advisory
- Wayfinding Strategy
- Wayfinding Design
- Multi-disciplinary coordination
- Stakeholder Engagement
THE CHALLENGE
Old Oak Common's division between multiple train services presents a unique wayfinding challenge. Ensuring that customers can quickly and easily find the correct platform is critical to smooth operations and to preventing pedestrian congestion. Additionally, with the station set deep within a vast public realm and positioned at a distance from Old Oak Common Lane, connecting travellers to the wayfinding system early on is essential to guide movement and encourage a natural flow toward the station entrance.
THE SOLUTION
The architecture features a strong intuitive connection between the concourses through the roof design, and this concept is carried throughout the wayfinding implementation, utilising large supergraphics that can be easily read throughout the station, thereby aiding quick recognition of train services and platform numbers for customers.
Throughout the design programme, the design of the urban landscape has been reviewed to ensure that wayfinding is supported within the urban realm layout for all passenger types. Routes are clear, and key destinations have unobstructed sightlines on approach. Where destinations are out of sight (due to the size of the site) signage plays a key part in providing identification to the site and directional information to the entrance and other destinations, using clear and easy-to-read directional signs. The inclusion of landmark features within the site, such as the water garden, will act as a wayfinding beacon for customers to use as a unique point of reference. This helps to create a sense of intuitive and natural wayfinding for customers.
THE RESULT
Still under development, the resulting Wayfinding Strategy, delivered along with a complete sign schedule and graphic artwork, will be used to implement 1000’s of wayfinding signs and Customer Information Screens under the BBVS construction programme.
