Publications

❝ Railway stations first appeared with the Industrial Revolution and have developed in parallel with all the societal changes that have taken place over the past two centuries. This parallel process has a global dimension; the Earth and its inhabitants have reached a historical turning point, the epilogue of our thermo-industrial civilisation. We need to successfully move through this transition because we are facing both a critical situation and a tipping point: biodiversity is collapsing, the climate is changing at a vertiginous pace, planetary resources are sorely stretched while serious ecological disruption is on the rise (atmospheric, soil and ocean pollution, uncontrollable pandemic risks, etc.). These crises provide tremendous opportunities to repair our world and must call forth all human energies. Creativity is stimulated by constraint, and here at AREP we are committed to this forward movement, to the full extent of our ability. AREP is a multidisciplinary firm that has been building contemporary railway stations in France and around the world for over twenty years. Today, the company has set itself a new mission: to create a post-carbon future. With this goal in mind, I am venturing down some avenues, testing hypotheses about the future of stations, namely post-carbon stations, in order to keep this extraordinary history alive. ❞

• Raphaël Ménard