Bermondsey

The Bermondsey station demonstrates the potential for an elegant integration of a complex infrastructure as the Tube system into a tight space. There is great consideration in this project for the importance of a sensory connection to the contextual environment. The sublte vertical shift into the entry hall provides access to the descending escelators but also allows for a unique visual encounter with the surrounding neighbourhoods through the continous glass surface along the wall parallel to the general flow through the space. The freshness of the neighbourhood is not forgotten as one descends. The heavy open-web concrete truss system enables a lightness to the space as sunlight bounces all the way down to the tube level. The movement of the shadows traces the liveliness of the environment above. And in this there is a memory of where one came from, or a foreshadowing of where one is going to.

Program

The smallest-capacity station on the Jubilee Line Extension, Bermondsey provides access to a densely populated neighbourhood not previously served by the Tube system.

 

Engineering

The site was too small to dig a pit fort the entire station. Instead, drillers brought the tracks to the station in standard 13-foot-diameter tunnels and then bored 23-foot-diameter tunnels to make room for the platforms (bottom). Contractors built a box containing shafts, escalators, elevators, and stairs from the top, casting a horizontal diaphram slab to hold back the earth. The box was then dug and poured downward, with horizontal braces added to form a massive open-webbed truss. Where additional shafts were needed, they rise above ground clad in copper and swathed in plantings.

 

Expression

Ritchie is known for elegantly detailed glass walls, and for the entrance pavillion, he designed special clamp-on fittings (see top image). A translucent-glass roof over the stair hall drives daylight (directed vy vertical metal blades under the roof) six stories down to track level. "We made Bermondsey a special station precisely because the environs were not," comments JLE Architects' Roland Paoletti.