Angle Lake Station and Plaza
Angle Lake Station is a new form of social Infrastructure. With ample space for people to live, work, and play, the seven acre, 400,000 square foot mixed-use complex provides essential intermodal public transportation, but also important public spaces, helping to bridge gaps among diverse socioeconomic groups, to cross the chasms of race, economic class and form new social boundaries that foster a greater sense of community to create a modern day civic space. The result of an international design/build competition, Angle Lake Transit Station and Plaza is an Envision designed sustainable mixed-use facility consisting of a 1-acre connecting plaza and community event spaces, a drop-off area for light rail users, retail space with dedicated bike storage and parking and a 35,000 square-foot parcel for future transit-oriented development. It also includes a parking structure for 1,150 cars designed to accommodate conversion to new future uses. One of the main architectural features is the structures façade constructed from 7,500 custom extruded aluminum planks and encompassing more than 100,000 square feet of area. Inspired by William Forsythe’s improvisational piece ‘Dance Geometry’ where dancers connect their bodies by matching lines in space that could be bent, tossed or otherwise distorted, the façade design explores the possibilities where simple straight lines are composed to produce an infinite number of movements and positions with little need for transition. This idea lessens the need to think about the end result and focus more on discovering new ways of movement and transformations’.