The railway line between Hoek van Holland and Schiedam - better known as the Hoekse Lijn - has been renewed, extended and converted into a metro line. With the modifications, the line underwent a major metamorphosis at the same time. For instance, the existing and new stations are now accessible via concrete portals showing a pattern in the shape of a school of fish. From Schiedam to Hoek van Holland, the gantries slowly change colour from yellow to orange - bringing the metro passenger into the evening red.
The renovation of the Hoekse Lijn connected to metro line B starting at Nesselande beach. Architect Marc Verheijen chose to reflect the coastal destination at each station. The architect created functional and multicoloured designs in which portals form the entrance to the stations. The architect left no doubt about the recognisability. Not only in size and height but also in the coloured design. The colours of the various portals fit within the spectrum of evening red: from yellow on the city side to red-orange on the coast.
The portals themselves are made of concrete incorporating a pattern by Rotterdam designer Erik Sandifort. Matching the travellers' coastal destination, he chose a school of fish - symbolic of travellers travelling together towards a shared final destination. The designer abstracted the fish but managed to retain the characteristic dynamics of a school of fish. To implement the dynamic pattern in concrete, NOE-Betonvormgeving was approached, which worked with Erik Sandifort on translating the abstracted sketch into profiled concrete formwork parts. To this end, the image of the school of fish was first enlarged to an area the size of the portal walls. This surface measures 4 x 7 metres and is divided into 12 slabs measuring 2 x 1.20 m.
To make the dynamics of the school of fish visible, much attention was paid to the depth of the pattern recesses and the connection of the 12 individual plates to each other. In doing so, the grey levels from the original design were translated to depths of 10, 20 and 30 mm. To achieve the different layer depths in the poured concrete, the pattern was manufactured by NOE Concrete Design as a position template from CNC-milled NOE model building board. This plate is easy to work with and offers designers, architects and contractors the greatest possible design freedom. After final finishing, 4 final moulds were made from this. The mould was then used to manufacture the prefab portal elements.
