Headquarters design

Railway Headquarters Renovation

A national railway had just taken over its own line, and its headquarters wasn't built for the job: no room to watch the line from, nowhere to meet, a passenger hall that felt like a waiting room. The building had good bones, so the design sets bronze and open metal against its classical columns. The hall becomes the railway's front door, with its history, a café and a motion ride, and the line gets a room to be watched from. I led the design, then stayed on site until opening day.

Industry: Transport & civic
Type: Design & Build
Role: Lead designer

The visitor hall

A hall that felt like a waiting room, opened up as the railway's front door: its story, a new stair and screens in the walls, under the station's classical frame.

Dega Coffee

A hall people pass through needs a reason to stay: a café with its own kitchen, a granite counter and a full-height shelving wall.

The waiting room and the ride

The queue is the ride's first scene: a waiting room drawn in the railway's three ages, and the motion cinema behind it.

The control room

The line had no room to be watched from. Now it has one, planned from the operators' sightlines out.

The team work areas

Teams need room to work together and room to get away: open-plan areas around a skylit atrium, with lounges to step away to.

The executive offices

Leadership gets doors to close: private offices for the railway's executives, the CEO's among them.

The VIP lounge

Guests are hosted, not just met: lounge, dining table and coffee bar in one room.

The bilateral room

A railway shared by two nations needs a room for both: two delegations across one table, between walnut walls and their flags.

The meeting halls

The headquarters had nowhere to meet. Now its larger meetings have halls, the tables set in a U facing the flags and the railway's mark.

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Renders

Construction

Built

Old building, new metal

The station is only eight years old but dressed as a classical one: Corinthian columns, arched windows, oculi in the roof. Rather than hide it, the design lets it stand and sets bronze aluminium cladding and an open-cell metal ceiling against it, so old and new read side by side.

A locomotive in the hall

The hall's centrepiece is a mockup of a locomotive front, set under the new stair as if pulling into the station. Around it, glass cases hold the artefacts and trade goods that moved on the line, so passengers waiting for a train meet the railway's story first.

Screens in the walls

Seven LED surfaces are built into the walls, among them a curved wall 7.65 metres wide and a ticker the length of the ticket counter. They were sized and placed with the cladding, so they read as architecture, not as equipment added afterwards.

Drawn from the operator's eye

The screens were placed from the operators' eyes outward. On the front wall, an 8.64 by 2.7 metre video wall is sized so its far corners sit at the same 37.5° from both outer desks; on the side wall, a 10.3 metre signage screen reads at 24.7° from the nearest seat and 14° from the farthest. The LED panels are matte, against glare, and acoustic fabric between the light slots keeps a long shift quiet.

A cinema that moves

A flying cinema: two seat pods on a six-axis platform roll on a 2.5-metre track from a raised loading platform, through the partition, to a 180-degree screen curved on a 3.5-metre radius. Wind, rain and snow blow from a ring around the screen, and every wall absorbs sound, so the exhibition next door never hears the ride.

The railway's three ages

The waiting room is the one room a visitor chooses to enter, so it carries the identity hardest. Murals of the railway's three ages, steam, diesel and electric, were drawn as one set, in one green and one line weight, running from the reception mark to the doors into the ride.

Closing thoughts

This station had just been handed back to its own railway, and I wanted every room, from the hall to the control room, to show who that railway had become. What I took from it: when a building already has a voice, design with it, not over it.

Services: Interior designFurniture designDesign leadershipSite supervisionTechnical drawingsBills of quantitiesSpecification coordinationBuilding integrationVendor coordinationMural and graphic designBrand applicationFurniture selection
Tools: RevitAutoCAD3ds MaxRhinoD5 RenderUnreal EnginePhotoshopIllustrator
Date: October 2024 to August 2025

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