Julian I'm always blown away by the sheer scale of these Elizabeth line stations as an architect
how do you go about creating such a beautiful edifice? We first start by looking at the nature
of the service that's going to be provided and the railway systems that are necessary to support
that service and that therefore drives a number of people that have to be accommodated and into
that there's a whole series of functionality portions of the design that drop out so the
numbers of people in the train service will drive the size of the platforms and the sizes the spaces
through the stations it will also drive the level of equipment that's needed such as fans to support
the running of the rail service and importantly in the event of an emergency how evacuation is
achieved and the sizing of that considering the people you then move on to how their journey works
and the experiential nature of their journey that then starts to drive us to think about how
the routing works through the stations for ease of flow and efficiency of use and then also to
start considering the station environment such as materiality and how it appears to people as
they're using it and the facilities within the station as you start to move through the station
you have to think about how the station integrates with the wider side of the urban realm
stations are essentially a civic form of building now and they have a big impact on the local area
we have to consider how they integrate with local development how they integrate with onward moving
services and especially now how the environment is affected that also brings into consideration
elements of sustainability so efficiency of materials the amount of waste that's generated and
how that's moved and of course energy efficiency all of that means that you start to drive a level
of quality of aspiration about the design into into the designers and that therefore means you
have to make sure that you've got a design team that has the right set of skills experience and
importantly ambition London Underground is known for the simplicity and excellence of
its way finding to enable customers to find their way around how did you design that into
creating a truly excellent customer experience for Elizabeth line passengers essentially what we've
managed to do is exploit the form of engineering construction so for example in the tunnel stations
we've utilized sinuous forms to ensure there's clear passenger flow so what that means is unlike
most underground systems in particular the London Underground system where you have tunnels joining
we don't have right angle junctions where people meet that means we get a much more
flowing run through the stations and that combined with decluttering means that the signage systems
are far more obvious the customer information systems are right where you need them and have
high visibility and then as you move on to the platforms we have above every single platform edge
screen door a digital information system giving you your departing information the stations are
designed to also support intuitive wayfinding so for example here at Tottenham Court Road we have
coloured cladding at various points through the station and that helps you orientate yourself
and locate where you are in the station and as part of your route out that works in combination
with signage on the rear of the platform which includes local information and Legible London maps
so that you're able to determine which end of the station you need to exit as an operator i'm really
pleased to see that we've incorporated platform screen doors into the design just as we did on the
JLE the Jubilee Line Extension a few years back so what are the benefits that platform screen
doors bring and why did you incorporate them into the Elizabeth line well of course one of the main
differences between the Elizabeth line and the Jubilee line in how we've incorporated platform
screen doors is that we have a full height system here the Jubilee line is only a half height system
essentially platform screen doors serve two functions
one is safety and the other concerns the passenger environment considering the safety function and
platform screen doors of course stop and prevent accidental falls onto the track from the platform
and in the event of an emergency on the running railway where there might be some smoke generated
of course it stops the smoke coming into the station so two very important aspects of safety
there in terms of the passenger environment because the platforms are separated from
the trains the platform environment is much cleaner air environment these screens also
assist with the ventilation on the platform so we have a cooler platform so much more comfort
it also reduces the noise on the platform so the PA system is much more intelligible and with the
system that we have designed here it incorporates the platform lighting digital customer information
screens above every single door so right at the point of use before you get on the train
and of course digital advertising so overall the they introduce the benefit of safety and
an improved customer environment with a one singular hard working element
Julian these are clearly stations that have been designed not just for current customers but for
many generations of users to come so how did you future proof the design of the Elizabeth line
Elizabeth line stations have already been designed with an uplift of 28 percent of
opening day passenger figures in mind that means all the spaces within the stations
are already designed for additional people and some of the stations also have been designed to
accommodate additional escalators platforms are designed and built at 250 metres or thereabouts
and we start on opening day with a nine car train which is approximately 200 meters long
that means that we can expand the trains by two cars without having to rebuild platforms
in addition the station's all designed with 120 years design life that means that all the fixtures
fittings and equipment has been designed to be very robust and it's also designed on the basis
of a plug and play or interchangeable arrangement which enables very quick or quicker I should say
replacement and maintenance so Julian building new infrastructure doesn't just benefit London
it in fact benefits the whole of the UK can you tell us more about that yes I mean probably the
best way of illustrating this is to say that in excess of 90 percent of the contracts that
were let for the construction of the Elizabeth line went to companies that were UK wide based
of that 90 percent in excess of 60 percent were to companies outside of london
and a way to illustrate that might be to look at say Tottenham Court Road station
the glass paneling that we have comes from Glasgow the signage systems manufactured in the Isle of
Wight and the GRC that we see throughout the station was all manufactured in Doncaster
so there's a lot of hard work that's gone into building the Elizabeth line and a lot of that
has been spread throughout the United Kingdom now we've seen some of the features of Elizabeth line
stations what do you think the Elizabeth line will mean for London well it's hard to know where to
start really there's so many uh benefits that the Elizabeth line will bring for starters it's
accessible not just in the central core the ten new stations but also the stations on the east and
the west that Network Rail have been renovating it's temperature control it's a clean modern safe
environment that i know that Londoners will love it adds much needed capacity something
like 10 percent of additional capacity to London's transport network and finally and
maybe less tangibly this is the ultimate symbol of london's emergence and resurgence from the covid
pandemic that we face nothing could provide a greater lift to Londoners and i'd say to
to the whole of the UK than this stunning new railway and I can't wait for it to open