Metro Station No.11, Saat Square, Tabriz

The general definition of space in a metro station is to be detached from outdoor area and being surrounded underground which needs to be reached by leaving the open area and dive deep. This proposal challenges this idea and seeks to bind ground and underground and revive human connection among those who use the subway services and those who just walk through the site. This connection in the first underground level (multipurpose hall), where its cultural nature and commercial values are outstanding, is quite important because it can somehow welcome those who is not even willing to use the subway transportation to experience the area. These communication corridors are shaped like a glass cubical, sinking in the ground, forcing the spectators to investigate the object and the relevant space. These transparent boxes are not just an entrance gate to the subway station but an urban experience to both the people who is using this service and those who just stepped in an important urban area.
From these three transparent connecting channels, there is physical connection in two of them in which one of them facilitated to an elevator to help disables to reach three floors down, straight to the train.
The third connecting channel is a glass box with a bridge which crosses the station from above, with visual connection and an exceptional urban experience. At the same time it improves the quality of the indoor area with natural light going all the way to second underground level.
In order to achieve the main purpose of design, to interlock outdoor and indoor, entries and connecting pathways have to demonstrate visual contact and at the same time feels protected in both security aspects and air quality. Glass boxes not only control the indoor area but improve the visual connection and this connection can be enhanced with careful consideration in both structural and non-structural material. All structural members are considered to be from multi glass layers which are stuck together with special component. Structural members intercross in both directions to improve the behavior of the structure in the wide span.
The combination of glass and concrete as two pure materials has used in entries in form of vertical and horizontal elements with actual functional purposes which have merged together and created a figurative feature for the most important part of this connection between in and out.
Three glass boxes have placed in the site in the way that with existing green mass in the south and west, it has produced an active point in the middle of site which can turn to a dynamic urban space with which visual and physical connection to the Multipurpose Hall, improves the quality and flexibility of activities.
This seemingly surrounded area is in fact an open-plan urban space with capacity of different social festivals in one of the busiest places in the city. This capacity can extend with close connection to the indoor area to provide divers functions for different seasons in a dynamic complex.