Central Valley Stations
Research and strategy to land a $70M contract designing California’s first high-speed rail stations.
Overview
Working with a large team composed of architects and engineers, I led site research and helped craft a proposal that secured a $70 million contract to design California’s first high-speed rail stations.
Activities concept development
planning strategy
archival research
workshop facilitation
spatial analysis
proposal writing
Team Daniel Haufschild, Kate White, Remi Drouot, Thyda Uy
Date2022
LocationCentral Valley, California
StudioArup Cities, Planning & Design
Partners Foster + Partners, Sitelab, Zach Urban Solutions
Challenge
Cruising the I-5 through the Central Valley between San Francisco and L.A. can feel like a blur of billboards and fields as far as the eye can see. But beyond most people’s view are cities that’ve been left behind, cut off from the growth and buzz of California's coastal hotspots.
This is where high-speed rail is about to change the game. When the agency in charge of the project went looking for partners to design its first four stations in the Central Valley, my team at Arup didn’t hesitate.
The Macro View
Our bid director knew we had to get the client’s goals and the local context right to win this job, so she had me dive in. I scoured archives, interviewed locals, and put together a memo laying out the big challenges and opportunities for the client and the station city communities.
Presenting this to our wider team of architects and engineers felt like watching people learn how to read a map for the first time. Instead of getting stuck in technical design details, everyone started focusing on how our designs and skillsets could solve the client’s problems.