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December 1, 2015

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Home » District » Pudong

Stepping off a train opens door to fantasy world

By Lu Feiran | December 1, 2015, Tuesday | Print Edition

Shi Xiang doesn’t have any children yet, but he thinks about the day when his kids and millions of others on a visit to Shanghai Disney Resort will be entranced by the wonderland they encounter when they step off the train at the theme park’s Metro station.

Although he has been an architectural designer of Metro stations for 10 years, the Disney stop is like no other. It is designed to project the aura of a place of dreams and fantasy.

“I hope the station will evoke in visitors an understanding of the Disney culture, which means I hope the station can be a part of the Disney dream,” said the 37-year-old designer. “For people coming to Disneyland via public transport, the station literally will be their first impression of the whole resort. Their whole experience starts here, so we want to give them the best.”

Shi, who works with Shanghai Xiandai Architectural Design, has been engaged in the project since 2009.

The station is lit by a huge, transparent roof, making it unique in China. Although the station is technically half-underground, passengers will feel they are enveloped by natural lighting.

“Originally we wanted to design a pedestrian square on the top of the station, but eventually we adopted the idea of skylight instead,” said Shi. “Visitors in the station will be able to enjoy the feeling of being outdoors, which is very different from the concept of traditional subway stations.”

He said one of the biggest difficulties in designing the station was estimating peak-hour usage, especially when Shanghai Disney Resort first opens to an eagerly waiting public.

“The station is not in the paid area of the resort but in the public area, so it’s quite possible that many people just come here to have a look at the scenery but not actually go into the theme park,” he said. “That part of passenger volume will perhaps place great pressure on the station.”

Shi said morning traffic loads will be easier to handle because they will be more dispersed, but at night, say after the gala fireworks, there may be a rush to catch the Metro. To deal with possible huge passenger volumes, the station is equipped with four auxiliary tracks.

“The auxiliary tracks are mainly for the night peak rush, and we have four spare trains ready to meet the possible passenger loads, with full capacity of 2,000 people each,” he said.

Shi said Metro authorities have already begun making contingency plans, based on their experience of crowd control during the World Expo Shanghai 2010. Manual ticket sales, for instance, are under serious consideration to handle the frequent cases when visitors from out-of-town get confused about how to use automated ticket machines.

Born in Yunnan Province, Shi graduated from Southwest Jiao Tong University in 2003, majoring in architecture. He came to Shanghai in 2005. His projects have included stations for Metro Line 11.

The Disney project was an exciting challenge in his career.

For example, the Disney station will be completely barrier-free. It has four wide, ramped exits to accommodate elderly and disabled people.

“Usually we don’t have barrier-free facilities at every exit of a station in Shanghai, but we were required to do so for this station,” he said.

Staff in the station will wear special uniforms tailored to the Disney theme, and employees who smoke will be kept out of the public eye in a specially designed office.

“Americans lay more emphasis on details aimed at creating a top-flight user experience,” Shi said of the Disney Group. “I think domestic designers have a lot to learn from them.”

Shi said he visited the Disneyland in Paris as part of consultations on the design of the Shanghai Disney station, but the comparable Metro station there wasn’t so tailored to the Disney concept.

“Usually stations serving Disneylands in foreign countries are outside the theme park, but ours is in the central area,” said Shi.

The interior décor of the Shanghai Disney station will merge the Disney concept with traditional Chinese cultural arts. Designers from both China and the US have contributed proposals and ideas.

“When we are not very familiar with a culture, we tend to reduce it to symbols,” Shi said. “For example, Disney may just mean Mickey Mouse to some Chinese people, but that’s not necessarily true and it is not the idea that the US Disney Group wants to convey,” said Shi. “Similarly, Americans may view paper umbrellas as a symbol of Chinese culture, which is far from accurate, too.

“Disneyland is not only about something we see and hear, but also about the ambience, services and culture we sample,” he said. “It’s a different experience from what we have in China. I may be too old to feel that my dreams can come true in a place by Disneyland, but children aren’t. And that’s what’s important.”

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