Lightrailstation

The new Lightrailstation designed by the Dutch architectural firm ZJA Zwarts & Jansma Architects has been erected close to the central station in The Hague. The station floating approximately ten meters above street level is connecting local and long-distance transportation.
A spatial steel structure made out of rectangular hollow sections is covering the platforms. The rolled profiles are organized in two independent layers which are rigidly connected. Arranged in a parallel grid with a distance of 1.50m they spanning over the tubular station in diagonal direction. Therefore they need to be double-curved. Since the bent diamond shaped glass panels can only be attached to the outer layer of the steel grid, the glass is two-side supported. The geometry of the double-curved part at the nose of the roof structure is the result of a complex form-finding strategy based on a series of architectural and geometrical requirements as well as fabrication constraints. In order to achieve an economically reasonable solution, it was necessary to find a double-curved geometry that could be covered by single curved glass panels (cylindrical glass).