Winning designs of Rail Baltic's Ulemiste terminal competition determined

First place in the competition for the architectural design of the joint terminal of the Rail Baltic railway at Ulemiste in Tallinn was won by the joint design of Zaha Hadid Architects and Esplan, titled Light Stream Photo: Zaha Hadid Architects ja OÜ Esplan

First place in the competition for the architectural design of the joint terminal of the Rail Baltic railway at Ulemiste in Tallinn was won by the joint design of Zaha Hadid Architects and Esplan, titled Light Stream, while Rail Baltic Estonia is to launch negotiations with those who submitted the competition's three winning designs next week.

In May 2019, Rail Baltic Estonia announced an international idea competition for finding an architectural solution for the planned Rail Baltic terminal in Ulemiste that is the most suitable in terms of use, idea and with consideration to the urban space. The competition ended on September 3.

The work submitted by the deadline were ranked by a nine-member jury including Rail Baltic Estonia manager Riia Sillave, Pro Kapital Eesti AS board member Allan Remmelkoor, Estonian Railways development manager Andrus Noor and member of the supervisory board of Mainor Ulemiste Andrus Kaldalu. Architects were represented in the jury by former chief architect of Tallinn Endrik Mand and the author of the structural plan for the Ulemiste area, Mattias Agabus. In addition, architect Janis Dripe, former Latvian minister of culture, and Danish architects Jesper Gottlieb and Thomas Grave-Larsen sat on the jury.

"Starting next week, we will start negotiations with the authors of three very different architectural ideas to determine who and on the basis of which sketch will start designing the new RB Ulemiste terminal," Sillave said.

"I have been constantly informed about the developments in the Ulemiste area and in light of the works presented to the public today, I am more than convinced that the area is becoming one of the most attractive and, in terms of infrastructure, synergistic in Tallinn. A true multi-modal transport hub is emerging, with rail, bus and air traffic coming together there in the future," Minister of Economic Affairs and Infrastructure Taavi Aas said.

In terms of the winning works, first place was awarded to Light Stream, a joint submission of Zaha Hadid Architects and Esplan, while second place was nabbed by The Ulemiste Leaf, a work of Innopolis Insenerid, and Videvik, created by DBA Progetti S.p.A. and HML Project Management.

Riivo Tuvike, CEO of Tallinn Airport, said that, compared with other European capitals, the capital of Estonia is in a unique situation in which the airport and soon also the main station of Rail Baltic will be located nearly next to one another just outside the city center.

"For the second year in a row, the number of passengers at Tallinn Airport is exceeding the three million mark, the impact of which on the Estonian economy is about 2.6 percent of GDP per year. I believe that alongside and in cooperation with Rail Baltic, we will be able to establish more and faster connections to different parts of the world for Estonia, which will bring more tourists here and thus boost our economy even more," Tuvike said.

The participating designs can be seen in the gallery of Tallinn Airport until the end of the year.

Rail Baltic is a double track, European standard 1,435 mm gauge electrified railway for passenger and freight transport to be built from Tallinn to the Lithuanian-Polish border. The overall length of the railway will be 870 kilometers. The infrastructure to be established will enable passengers to travel from Tallinn to Parnu in 40 minutes and from Tallinn to Riga in two hours.