Design
A Train Station Inspired By Natural Growth and Decay
Credit this architect for building a transportation hub that looks like it'd eat you alive.
You have to love Shahira Hammad for envisioning a train station where your principal concern wouldn't be getting there on time, but whether you could find your way out at all.
Hammad's proposal to revamp Vienna's staid Westbahnhof station draws heavily from natural processes like growth and entanglement: It looks like an immense rootball sprouted dozens of legs and started mating with a building. The structure is supported by thick, brown tendrils akin to mature poison-ivy vines. Peeking through these is an internal system of webs and membranes that appear to have been inspired by the thatched roofs of a shantytown, dimpled pig tripe and spindly rib cages.