Architecture Students Re-Vision Railway Exchange Building

Date Posted: December 19, 2014

Posted In: Discussion, Ideas, News,

From STLToday: Student architects set loose on the Railway Exchange Building were instructed to think creatively in devising plans to revive the huge, empty structure in downtown St. Louis.

They succeeded.

Click here to view a video produced by Washington University of the student architects and their Railway Exchange projects.

Nine graduate students at Washington University’s Sam Fox School of Design & Visual Arts proposed repopulating the building with stores, residences, a hotel and in at least one plan, parking.

Some students went further. One suggested a big auditorium in the middle of the building. Another proposed large, irregularly shaped spaces to accommodate business meetings or exhibitions. Yet another student came up with a plan for training centers for building trades.

And one student proposed opening up much of the building to flood daylight onto the floor of an indoor soccer stadium.

“That’s not going to happen,” the building’s owner, developer Rick Yackey, said.