Located on the east coast of China, the city of Qing Dao is one of the country’s biggest ports. In the 19th century it was colonised by Germany and was officially ceded to it by the Manchu administration in 1898 for a period of 99 years, but was taken back by China in 1922 following the war with Japan. In 2008, Qing Dao hosted the Olympic sailing events.

Its new mainline station, which faces the sea, almost self-evidently seeks its inspiration in the symbolism of ports and seafaring birds with large wingspans. It was this self-evident symbolism that was unanimously acclaimed by the competition judges in December 2007.

As in most Chinese stations built on this scale, the arrivals and departures lines are covered over with a “departures hall” – a full-blown bridging structure built over the tracks, from which passengers descend to their departure platforms.

For passenger arrivals, and to minimise the pressures of large numbers and dense flows of passengers, travellers go down a level towards the metro, taxi rank and passenger car pick-up areas. This ensures that departing and arriving passengers never mingle.

The main area of the “Departures Hall” and the seemingly complex shape of the roof can be guessed at from the repetition of a single structural module, which only varies as a function of its spatial positioning. The programme is therefore, in view of its scale, an apparently complex formal programme, but because it is modular it is economical and easy to implement.

Ongoing detailed preliminary design studies factor in the climatic potential of Qing Dao in order to create a large-volume natural ventilation system for the hall in mid-season periods, designed to cut the operator’s annual energy spending on climate control for the hall by 30%.