“Venice hub”

The project “Venice hub” is about a visionary development for the City of Venice. It examines infrastructural concepts, large scale urban planning, architecture and transportation design, while always focusing on sustainable principles. The project is composed of two major parts:  1) a newly developed transportation system which improves the connection between the two parts of the city, “Centro Storico” and “Mestre” which are both undergoing extensive urban development 2) the central transport hub especially designed for this transportation system

The principle item of the new transportation system is an amphibian shuttle which can function as both a catamaran on the waters around Venice and a land-based Monorail on a track due to its design and equipment; with a chassis and water jet.

The energy needed to run the system is produced entirely by photovoltaic panels which are an integral part of the track construction. With a gross collector area of 60, 000 square meters it is possible to develop a self-supportive transport network.

The central transport hub is located at the initial point of the former railway and motorway bridge, where all incoming traffic is bundled and redirected to the shuttle network.

Inside the building the main distributor floor is located under a transparent roof. It is surrounded by numerous utilities such as a through station, spacious parking areas, bus station, taxi stand, landing stage for ships and boats and retail areas. Parking areas for tourists are located close to the motorway and directly connected to the shuttle transport network.

The building’s form results from a widening of the tracks from the three main directions of traffic (North Mestre, South Mestre and Venice), which are accumulated and assorted inside. Each of the three incoming tracks are split into the two other directions at the entry of the building and recombined at the exit, with another track taking the same direction.

This arrangement allows shuttles that head the same direction to stop on either side of the particular platform, thus providing good orientation as well as maximum usability.

Shortly before reaching the island the shuttles leave the track through an entry and exit point. From this point they act as a water-bound means of public transport.