Paddington Elizabeth Line station

Originally designed by Isambard Kingdom Brunel and Digby Wyatt, Paddington is Grade I listed and an icon of Victorian engineering – setting the bar high for its new Elizabeth Line addition by Weston Williamson + Partners Weston Williamson + Partners’ Elizabeth Line station is the culmination of over ten years’ work by the practice at the station, transforming the passenger experience, In 2012 Weston Williamson + Partners had used the future arrival of the Elizabeth Line as a catalyst for moving taxis to the north of the station alongside a new underground station, thereby opening up new connections and improving pedestrian and traffic flow to and through the station. Today, Paddington has a highly visible and navigable main entrance for the first time, with the Elizabeth Line entrance extending alongside Eastbourne Terrace beneath a 2,300 sq.m glazed roof. From a 300 metre long new public plaza, lifts and escalators take passengers onto the station concourse and platforms below, or into the mainline station through a series of new entrance portals. At street level, a pair of sculptural ventilation shaft enclosures, clad with tapering cast stone fins and crowned with glass canopies, help to frame the station entrance, and hint at the grandeur beneath. The design and delivery of Paddington required extensive deep excavations and complex engineering immediately adjacent to Brunel’s historic station in a busy part of central London. The result is as impressive as its construction and, descending to the concourse, the epic scale of the new Elizabeth Line station is revealed. The station features a 90-metre clear opening – a unique feature for urban underground station design – harnessing space, scale and light to match the grandeur of Brunel’s original station, and creating an uplifting and carefully-detailed space intended to claim its own legacy. Weston Williamson + Partners harnessed the box station construction technique to bring daylight and natural ventilation deep into the station: uniquely on the Elizabeth Line’s new central section it is possible to stand on the station platforms and look directly up to street level. Its robust engineering is celebrated – for instance in eight gigantic flared elliptical columns, clad in bronze to head height, which carry the weight of the structure above. There are careful details too – such as the tall hit-and-miss brick flank wall (which also has an acoustic function), the elegant stone paving to the entrance plaza, and beautiful anodised ‘lily pad’ light fittings set within saucer-like concrete ceiling coffers above the grand ticket hall. The station is constructed on the same rigorous 10 foot imperial grid as Brunel’s station, and references to this – for instance in the floor tiling and colonnades – are there to be found. The materials, comprising brick, concrete, stone and bronze are earthy and warm, reflecting the palette of the original station and with a nod to the classic underground stations by Holden and others. All services are cleverly tucked away out of sight towards the top of the station box, and ample provision.