With the success of the award-winning Frankston Station project behind them, the Genton team is looking forward to the completion of their next major railway-related project – another component of the Level Crossing Removal project with North Western Program Alliance. The re-design of Reservoir Station has been a very different project than Frankston, but, underpinning every decision, is the same attention to community input and collaborative communication that has enabled the power of genuine context to inform the project as one that is truly for the people.
According to Steven Toia, the heavy infrastructure at the Reservoir Station has already gone in, including the big steel bridges and columns that will form an integral part of the elevated skyrail – the first station of this type in Melbourne’s northern suburbs. Designed to offer a solution to the long-term problem of extremely bad traffic congestion at a crossing where around 36,000 vehicles passing through each day had been hampered by boom gates that remained down for as many as 24 minutes during the two-hour morning peak, the launch date for the station’s re-opening is slated as Monday, December 12, with the complete station opening scheduled for completion in 2020.
Genton’s work on the Reservoir Station project has been designed with the pleasure of the everyday user and visitor to the train station at the forefront of every key decision. ‘The location has the incredible benefit of enjoying amazing views in every direction – including back to the city skyline – and one thing we wanted to do was to make sure people could experience those views,’ says Steve. By making screens translucent, key view lines are not hampered and people waiting for their train can feel part of the natural environment around them – something that Steve hopes will minimise stress and add to a feel-good user experience. But Genton’s design is about much more than mere aesthetics and, by commitment to environmentally-friendly decision-making in every element of the design and construction, Steve, Marc and their Genton team are proud that Reservoir Station will be the first Five-Star Greenstar Rail Building in Victoria.
