The joint venture of the three Baltic states RB Rail AS has commenced the development of the Architectural, landscaping and visual identity guidelines for the railway infrastructure elements of Rail Baltica. These guidelines will provide harmonised solutions for the design of stations, railway bridges, signage, noise barriers, animal passages and other structures to be applied in further development of Rail Baltica as a truly cross-border project uniting the three Baltic states. Those solutions will be economically and technically feasible, standardized and innovative to be used during the design and ultimately – construction of the Rail Baltica line and infrastructure objects. In addition, the guidelines will set out the accessibility requirements for people with limited mobility as well as public safety requirements.
Based on the results of the international competitive procurement, the guidelines will be developed by an Italian company 3TI Progetti in a partnership with SBS Engineering Group. 3TI Progetti, the largest Italian independent employee-owned engineering company with 20 years of international experience in planning and design of transport and public infrastructure for more than 2500 projects in over 30 countries.
Importantly, the company will work closely with extensive number of stakeholder groups such as architects, landscape and interior architects, spatial planners, universities, railway administrators and municipalities in all three Baltic States to capture their expertise and to identify their expectations regarding the visual appearance of the Rail Baltica infrastructure. Furthermore, the contractor will explore and address the needs of various passenger groups such as people with reduced mobility, parents with young infants, senior citizens to ensure that the Rail Baltica infrastructure is accessible and safe for all parts of society.
The preparation of the Architectural, landscaping and visual identity guidelines will last for 35 weeks. It will include individual consultations with stakeholders, feedback workshops and presentations in Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania to capture the broad experience and expertise of Baltic architects, landscape designers and spatial planners as well as to address the needs of the future passengers.
An integral part of the guidelines will be benchmarking of conditions and concepts applied to materials, solutions, design and construction processes in similar best-in-class railway infrastructure projects.
The guidelines will be used in the design and construction phase of the Rail Baltica line and infrastructure objects.
In a meeting with the RB Rail AS team on November 16, Michele Amerio, Technical Director at 3TI PROGETTI said “Rail Baltica project is a public infrastructure project that connects three countries. These three countries have a common history, but they also have a specific identity. And purpose of this architectural guidelines is to connect these three counties having a common language and at the same time emphasize the single identity of each country”.