AREP has experience designing many European transport hubs and stations. In your view, what should a modern high-speed rail station reflect?

For me personally – as a train lover, a lover of stations, and also a European – it is essential that station design be tied to the idea of ecological transformation. We often rely on a cliché during planning: that the train has a lower environmental impact than cars or planes, and that this alone is enough. But in my view, it isn’t. Stations are public spaces, and that is precisely why they can play an important role in promoting environmental topics even to people who tend to avoid or question them. Stations can already now – and even more in the future – serve as places of inspiration, hosting exhibitions, and demonstrating that even historic buildings can be renovated sustainably. Thousands of people pass through them every day. So let's show them it can be done.

How important is intramodality in your designs, i.e. ensuring that transfers between different modes of transport are simple, fast, and environmentally friendly?

It plays a major role. Train travel is more environmentally friendly than travelling by car or plane, but a train only takes you from station to station. That’s why it’s crucial for architects to think about how passengers will actually reach the station. In cities this is easy, but in suburban areas people often drive there. It is therefore essential to support zero-emission transport and carpooling that connects to the rail network. Equally important for us is adapting stations to climate change. They are public spaces where people wait, and they must remain habitable even during heatwaves. Many stations are older, often with glass roofs that overheat in high temperatures. This is a problem not only for passengers but also for daily operations – stations are essentially small factories. And let’s not forget biodiversity. The surroundings of stations often consist of hardened, concreted surfaces devoid of life. We, however, try to transform them into green, living spaces, even though this is technically challenging.

How successfully are you able to implement your five-pillar sustainable design strategy in practice? And what did you base it on?

Architecture often runs up against two opposing approaches. One is purely “qualitative” – an architect claims that a building is sustainable because it uses clay or recycled materials, but offers no data. The other is the opposite – mountains of numbers and Excel sheets with assessments, from which it is unclear what truly matters.

This is why we created a methodology summarising what we call planetary boundaries. These include finite resources, the need to respond to climate change, the dramatic reduction of CO₂ emissions, moving away from fossil fuels (which still account for about 80% of global energy), and protecting biodiversity. Each pillar has specific metrics, and for every project we evaluate its environmental costs. Today we have an internal database of more than 200 projects. Thanks to that, we know, for example, that renovating a platform means roughly 100 kg of material per square metre, whereas building a new station requires 1,500 kg. We track the same for the carbon footprint: we know, for instance, the carbon impact of installing a lift, and so on. These tools help us determine not only the exact construction cost but also the ecological impact. This allows us to work so that the resources invested have the greatest positive effect in terms of emissions.

You are working with the Czech studio Monom on the design for the Jihlava High-Speed Terminal. How does it reflect your strategy?

Jihlava is a new experience for us in many respects. The current station was built around the year 2000, when the ecological crisis was not discussed with the urgency it has today. Our aim is therefore to design a new building that is as compact as possible, that fits smoothly into the landscape, uses timber, and has the lowest possible carbon footprint. Supporting biodiversity is also part of the design – we want to integrate it, for example, into the parking area using green surfaces that allow water to seep into the ground.

Like Czechia, other European countries are investing in high-speed rail infrastructure. What are its benefits, and what risks should be expected?

In advanced countries such as Spain, France, or Italy, high-speed rail has significantly improved tourism as well as the mobility of workers and students. But a potential risk is that it mostly strengthens major cities and metropolitan regions, thereby weakening smaller towns, suburban areas, and the countryside. This is very visible in France: while population density in the early 20th century was relatively even, today it is concentrated in a few centres separated by almost empty areas. In France these days, investing in everyday rail transport, similar to the S-Bahn systems in Germany, is much more important than building new high-speed lines. So to sum it up: high-speed rail can be beneficial for cross-border connections, but it should not serve only major metropolitan areas and the wealthier parts of society.

Does Prague have the potential to become a major European rail hub like Paris or Frankfurt? Does high-speed rail make sense for Czechia?

Prague is one of Europe’s most attractive tourist destinations. People perceive it as a romantic city, a bit like Venice. So it would certainly be worthwhile to encourage visitors to arrive by train. If you fly today, you land several kilometres from the city centre, face security checks, delays at the baggage claim, and uncertainty about how to continue your journey. Whereas arriving by train is, in most cases, a very smooth experience. Prague is also a fairly large city with two to three million inhabitants in its wider region. It lies in the centre of Europe and can connect effectively to other major hubs, such as Kraków, Berlin, or Munich. And its main station is a through-station, not a terminus, which allows vehicles to be used more efficiently. So I am very optimistic about Prague’s potential.

You and a colleague recently created a map of architecturally notable European railway stations. What led you to do that?

Partly pure joy - we love maps. But we also wanted to highlight that Europe already has more than 30,000 stations: an enormous cultural heritage and an immense potential for connecting people. And at a time when geopolitics forces Europe to stay more united, good connections are essential.

Rail’s share in European passenger transport is currently 7%. Raising it to 8% would save 7 million tonnes of CO₂ per year – roughly the amount produced by Prague. We want the map to spark curiosity in people, to make them want to discover stations and travel by train. My family and I travel by train often, and I regularly follow the website The Man in Seat 61 to look for new routes. I wanted something similar in my pocket – not a timetable, more like a restaurant menu.

Recording of the Connected Europe discussion: