Silver Architecture, Building and Structure Design · 2025
Amazon Bus Station
- A' Design Award 2025 Silver Winner in Architecture, Building and Structure Design
- Awarded April 15, 2025
- CLIENT: Integrated Inclusion and Rehabilitation Center
- Estimated Number of Design Views: 21,044
- Verification code 4F7AB75019 · Verify this award
About Amazon Bus Station
The facility, designed beyond its vocation as an urban hub, acts as an operator that brings people together and connects them; it reduces mobility time, which increases the reliability of the transportation system. Its naturally lit central module makes the space more welcoming and facilitates decision making about routes. The glass facade reflects the surroundings, creating a dynamic fusion of movements, shapes and colors that enrich the internal experience. As a climate strategy, roof mounted cross ventilation was adopted, inspired by the rich Amazonian architecture.
Fernando Andrade's Amazon Bus Station represents a compelling contribution to contemporary transportation architecture, demonstrating how parametric design principles and sophisticated material assemblies can elevate essential public infrastructure into memorable civic landmarks. The project engages with longstanding architectural traditions of the decorated shed and the expressive canopy while proposing distinctly twenty-first-century solutions through its tessellated aluminum skin and exposed timber structural framework. The designer appears to draw upon the formal vocabulary of computational architecture, where triangulated geometries emerge from structural optimization processes to create surfaces that are simultaneously load-bearing and visually dynamic. The chromatic strategy proves particularly noteworthy, as the judicious deployment of saturated yellow accents against the silvered metallic field establishes visual hierarchy and wayfinding cues while introducing warmth into an otherwise cool material palette. The two pavilion forms engage in productive formal dialogue, their shared geometric language creating coherence while their distinct profiles, one more enclosed and protective, the other dramatically open and welcoming, suggest differentiated programmatic functions within a unified architectural language. The image captures the structure during twilight, when interior illumination transforms the faceted envelope into a constellation of glowing and opaque triangular panels, revealing how the building assumes different identities as lighting conditions shift throughout the day. This temporal responsiveness speaks to an architecture conceived not as static object but as dynamic presence within its environment. The exposed structural members visible through the transparent portions invite contemplation of tectonic honesty and the expressive potential of construction systems made legible. How might such architectural ambition applied to everyday infrastructure transform our experience of public transit and collective civic space?
Press Kit
- Unique Properties
- The station, understood beyond an urban node, functions as an artifact that converges and connects people, reduces mobility time and removes physical barriers. A flexible facility was designed, with public bus and bicycle connections. Its central module, with natural lighting, humanizes the space: on a human scale, it allows decision-making on routes. The curved glass facade reflects the surrounding environment, creating a mix of movements, shapes and colors that enhance the interior experience.
- Dimensions & Packaging
- The station has dimensions of 16000 x 4000 mm, stabilized on the ground on 4 supports. Each structural triangle was made from a 75x3 mm quadrangular steel tube. The tubes are joined together using Mig welding and manually finished at the edges. The seals are made of glass skin, molded and cut using templates. The glass pieces were fixed with structural silicone on anodized aluminum panels. The glass is reflective laminated, 8 mm thick, with 99.8% performance against direct solar radiation.
- Tags
- bus station, transportation, parametric, sustainability, structure, architecture
- Production Technology
- The station is a structural fabric made up of 600 mm-sided triangles, which take on tensile and compressive functions, forming a rigid mesh. Recycled steel was chosen, reducing carbon emissions by 70%. The proposed roof aeration system is innovative and thermally conditions the environment, with low maintenance and implementation costs. The device does not require the use of electronic components. The device has laminated glass fins that allow wind and light to pass through, but block rain.
- Design Challenge
- The construction process took place in two distinct phases: construction in an industrial environment and assembly on site. The decision to produce the parts in a controlled industrial environment led to better results in terms of execution and quality control. We used the labor of local shipbuilders, engaging the local population. Given the complexity of the cutting and fitting of the parts, we decided to divide the structure into three large finished parts, finishing only the joints on site.
- Project Duration
- The project began in may 2023 in Belém of Pará and was completed in february 2024.
- Operation Flow
- he idea of the station as an isolated point was discarded, and it was incorporated as an integral part of a multimodal mobility network within the city. This concept reduces travel times, operating costs and increases the reliability of the public transport system. Ramps and other accessibility devices were used, physical and visual barriers were removed, making boarding and disembarking accessible and fast. This has ensured that passengers of any mobility level can safely use a bus.
- Research
- The station's conception was born out of a public consultation, in which users defined 4 essential project premises as demands: Robustness of the equipment, low implementation and operating costs, environmental comfort and protection of users against bad weather. Given these basic concepts, we propose the use of materials with high resistance to bad weather, low maintenance costs, and the adoption of traditional elements of Amazonian architecture, such as ventilation fins on the roof.
- Inspiration
- The issue of sustainability is understood as a fundamental condition of this project. The primary design gesture is a direct influence from regional vernacular architecture: The glass fins that aerate the top of the structure, the generous roof as an element of protection against the weather and the cross ventilation inside the space provide environmental comfort and reference the rich heritage of Amazonian architecture.
- Image Credits
- Image 01: Walda Marques, Amazon Bus Station, 2024. Image 02: Walda Marques, Amazon Bus Station, 2024. Image 04: Walda Marques, Amazon Bus Station, 2024. Image 05: Walda Marques, Amazon Bus Station, 2024. Image 06: Walda Marques, Amazon Bus Station, 2024.
- Patents
- Fernando Andrade and Associates