Station Square Maastricht

At the beginning of 2015, MTD landschapsarchitecten was assigned to draw up a development plan for Station Square and the Percée, as well as a design for the entrances and interior of the underground bike shelter. This has been developed into a technical design in cooperation with Thomas Kemme Architecten. During the implementation, MTD also took care of the technical and aesthetic supervision.
Station Square also underwent a preliminary layout at the same time as the implementation of the underground bike shelter. The idea is that, after a final decision has been taken with regard to the bus terminus and the design of the Percée, the final layout is fully implemented.

The main objective of the development plan is to create a pleasant public square that can showcase the city and the route from the Station to the inner city and vice versa. Here the ambition is to perfectly fit the entrances and light-penetrating atrium to the underground bike shelter in the square.
The main entrance to the underground bike shelter is situated in the median reservation of the Percée. This enables the median reservation to regain its original meaning for strolling and lingering under a canopy of trees and is given a new ending by way of the main entrance and roofing of the underground bike shelter. Thus the trees are retained and supplemented in the median.
The main entrance to the underground bike and scooter shelter has been created in the shape of a covered-over travolator. The robust parapet is about 1.0 metre in height, made of blue Belgian limestone. This material extends to the walls on the inside of the cut-out for the travolators. This vertical coherence between overground and underground was an important starting point for the design.
The roofing is given shape by eight 5.5-metres-tall steel columns, which match up with the main shape of the roof structure columns of the station’s platforms. They support a steel covering with a hole in the middle, which is covered with a slightly convex glass plate. The glass plate has been fitted with a grid of photo-electric cells.
A second entrance to the underground bike and scooter shelter has been introduced Station Square. It is situated just to one side and in the main direction of the main entrance of the station building. This entrance mainly consists of a natural stone parapet of about one metre in height, and a natural stone staircase.
The Development Plan's second aim was to enlarge Station Square in a westerly and northerly direction; up to point where, just like in the original situation, it stretches across the full width of the station building. As was the case in the original situation, a staircase for the main entrance has been introduced here, so that the station building is firmly anchored to the square. The idea is that all three doors to the main entrance will be opened again and serve as an entrance. The flooring of the square contains a distinct plateau around the staircase.
Materials used at the square and Percée are sawn light grey natural stone cobblestones laid in segmented rows; and the plateau and staircase in (fired) blue Belgian limestone tiles.
In the final layout of the square, a contemporary version of concrete lighting columns that had formerly stood here, were returned as important elements. The 11-metres-tall steel masts are presented on both sides of the main entrance; more or less at the place where they had originally stood.