My response to the brief 'A Platform For Joy' is based around ‘crossing paths’, taken from the idea that strangers pass every day in train stations without communicating or making connections, as well as the symbolism of train lines and journeys interlinking. My design proposes to purge the uncommunicative, dissociated environment exhibited by Southampton station users, and bring back a relationship between this gateway building and the city it presides in.
The design uses symbolism within its architecture to reinforce its core aims of forming relationships: drawing on the overlap of natural and built environments, interior and exterior worlds, the building and its surrounding city, and human tendencies and nature. Its focus is centred around the historic use of railway and the specific history of Southampton train station: its interaction with the natural environment and city life
