The Adelaide Central Bus Station, designed by Woodhead in association with Denton Corker Marshall, is the culmination of four years of masterplanning and design.
This new station far exceeds the previous facilities providing the public with modern amenities, setting a high standard for bus-terminal design in Australia.
The design provides an architectural landmark offering an immediate sense of place and orientation for the traveller. The building environment is light, airy, and welcoming with sensory impact.
The design team applied a distinctive mandarin orange colour palette to reference its location within the environs of Adelaide’s lively Chinatown. The strong colour also reinforces and signals the pedestrian access to the terminal from Grote Street.
A series of aluminium grids make up part of the bus station facade – these create a contemporary image that draws from its transportation based use – bus station and car parking. These curved and folded aluminium arcs are perforated, creating visual interest and emphasising the best features of both old and new transport facilities. The curved canopies on the street frontage project out from the line of the glazing offering a degree of protection for pedestrians and continuing the notion of the ‘veranda’.
In addition to the bus station the project provides 550 car parks over five levels and 39 ‘social housing’ residential units. The bus station houses 15 coaches and approximately 300,000 people per year pass through the doors on both interstate and intrastate travel.
Project Team:
