Page 97 - 360.revista de Alta Velocidad - Nº 6

The rail traveller, pedestrian or customer?
Passenger flow and retail: critical boundary objects in HS Station development

Figure 9: Retail verticalisation, flow visual consumption as part of retail value (a: from
above, B; from inside) NB authors photography

4.3 Trademarks as landmarks: spatial thresholds and punctuations within
the station space

This in-depth study of the spatial changes at Gare du Nord has more to add to our
understanding of the connection between traffic management laws and retail layout
marketing techniques. First, a reminder: retail outlets in stations have always played a
role in spatial orientation. However, in the context of enhanced commercial density and
traffic intensity, this role becomes even more essential. Today, one can no longer arrange
to meet under the main information board, since it has gone, or under a digital screen,
since there are dozens of them. So retail brands play an even more fundamental role than
in the past. Their features (position, orientation, height, colour) punctuate perception of
the station space.
An examination of social networks shows that young people arranging to meet at Gare du
Nord do not choose the rail company’s information kiosks as their rendezvous point, but
the favorite outlet. As a static landmark that stands out in the human flood, a trademark
is as effective a way as an information screen to negotiate the movement through space,
to construct access strategies around obstacles. The more the station space fills up with
discontinuities, the more layered and fragmented it is, the more the passages through
it must be both marked and softened. Retail spaces act not only as waymarks for the
different spaces, but become pivot points and thresholds in their own right. So shop
windows disappear, partitions become transparent, retail kiosks become rotundas or
acquire wheels, operating as junctions between between passport control and ticket
inspection in the Eurostar mezzanine), or between concourse and departure platform.

International Congress on High-speed Rail: Technologies and Long Term Impacts - Ciudad Real (Spain) - 25th anniversary Madrid-Sevilla corridor 95