Location: Ashland, Virginia
Type: Industrial Design
Size: 1,000 SQFT
Article: Project Completion
A canopy of minimalist qualities for Ashland Virginia Amtrak Station, enhances expression to the East platform (college side), it strengthens the existing tree lined street used as natural shading canopies for the town of Ashland.
Inspired by nature and its earliest landscapes, the Canopy embraces the opportunities offered from the site, articulating a structural response, creating a visual expression responding to the future and embracing the past. It creates a point of transformation, its own expression, yet respects the surrounding foliage.
The innovative elegance and careful proportioning of the structure augments an original charisma to the streetscape, and will meticulously relate to the neighborhood guidelines in color, material, scale and detail.
Amtrak, the Federal Railroad Administration (FRA), VPRA and the town of Ashland partnered to advance a series of improvements including the construction of two brick platforms, placement of two mobile lifts and accompanying canopy. Mobile lifts are available on each platform and will benefit all customers with wheeled luggage or strollers, in addition to those passengers who use mobility devices.
The upgrades at the Ashland station make rail service more accessible and an even better option for those travelers with mobility issues. A new site design will allow for a safer experience for customers and pedestrians, and modified vehicle traffic pattern. The new platforms will connect to sidewalks, crosswalks and a pedestrian grade crossing for customers to safely travel between trains and the station.