Berry and Linné

Rail Yard

LIGHT RAIL TRANSIT CENTER

The Rail Yard utilizes shape and a reinterpretation of local typologies to create a new civic place for Charleston, South Carolina. The design for the Rail Yard takes its lessons from the elegant efficiency of brick warehouses, the integration of building and landscape found in the single house and the monumentality of Charleston’s many churches and other civic buildings, re-shaping these precedents into a transit hub that is unique and bold but still rooted in a sense of place.

Today’s municipal transit stations necessitate a mixed-use venture: a combination of community and commercial uses contribute to both its financial success and public vitality. The Rail Yard adds both programmed and flexible open space to this mix, making transit use even more appealing and ingrained in the daily life of the city. Like the single house, this yard has a continuous relationship with its interior, facilitating multiple connections among each program component. The outdoor spaces relate directly to the interior program and include: an outdoor meeting area; exterior waiting areas for transit users; a place for café tables or weekend farmer’s markets; and a bicycle storage area. The design of the yard also allows for other uses, both planned and spontaneous.

The shape and verticality of the transit hub is essential to the creation of public open space and visual presence within the city. A single, super portal operates at the scale of the city while providing a public terrace – a space to look back at the city. At the pedestrian scale, an ivy covered wall of arch typologies establishes a porous yet defined edge.

Proposal for Light Rail Transit Center
Charleston, South Carolina
132' X 425' Urban Infill Parcel
45,000 Sq Ft Interior + 41,000 Sq Ft Exterior

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