Location
Honolulu, HI
Status
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Client
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The design of Iwilei Station is the result of several factors related to its unique location. The adjacent train depot is a vestige of the area’s identity as an industrial and warehousing district. Traditionally where transported goods transitioned from land to sea, Iwilei is and will continue to be an important symbolic link to the harbor. Centrally located, the surrounding parcels are in transition from their current underutilized state into what will be a vibrant diversified mixed use district.
The site bounded by Ka’aahi Street, Dillingham Blvd , and the power substation will eventually contrast the denser mixed use development that will follow in the surrounding parcels. Ultimately enhancing pedestrian access and the long term viability of the surrounding area should factor into the station’s design. To this end the station site will be accessible from multiple access points as the surrounding properties transform.
Sustainable design practices will be incorporated throughout the design as not only a means of optimizing materials and resources but as a gesture stewardship to the natural Hawaiian environment. Like Chinatown, the station will be perceived as a “pavilion in the park” complimenting the surrounding built fabric, defined by the landscape features and its minimal enclosure. The entry court, a pervious landscape with bio-retentive characteristics, will provide a friendly welcoming gesture to users as well as a means of absorbing rain runoff from the station facilities, and Platform (See Section 4.0). Echoing its industrial neighbors the station will contrast its surrounding site of indigenous coastal grasses and Kamani trees
As a result of the transitional state of the surrounding parcels, the station is located adjacent to Ka’aahi Street allowing direct access beneath the guideway. For this reason the station access is direct, not requiring bridge access as the other stations, and with the elevators end-loaded. Because the station is located directly beneath the guideway, the station roof will act as a visual foil wrapping beneath the guideway and partially sheltering the entry plaza introducing a human scale. The continuous roof form will allow unobstructed sightlines from grade to platform for security and clarity to users. Exposed steel ribs supported by a continuous glulam spine will echo both the industrial as well as nautical past of the district. The PTFE fabric membrane roof material will provide continuity with the platform membrane roof. The roof form will guide rain water to a collection basin at each side of the station and then will be channeled to the surrounding biorentive landscape.
The station area is visually open to the entry court. Recalling the art of indigenous weaving, a woven metal fabric screen surrounds the paid and free area. Recalling the neighboring industrial buildings, metal panels will enclose the service zone extending between the escalators at grade