India’s first AC railway station SMVT: what went wrong?

Sir M Visvesvaraya Terminal (SMVT) is India's first centrally air conditioned railway station, designed to look like an airport.

South Western Railways (SWR) spent 6 years and over 300 crores to build SMVT, so its disappointing to see how many issues there are with its design. At a first glance, the building looks like an airport, but as you get closer and start using the space you realize that it does a poor job of all the basics.

It’s difficult to reach, uncomfortable to wait at, and its confusing to navigate. Lots of space and material have been used but instead of creating value they feel incomplete and wasteful.

This video is an exploration of the 'Overengineering & underdesigning' trend that seems to dominate the urban construction industry right now. We argue that tools and policies have led to a construction style that builds spaces for vehicles, often at the cost of building for people. Buildings in this style tend to inconvenience people.

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Chapters in this video:
00:00 Introduction
1:40 Railway Station, a place to wait
3:15 Circulation Efficiency
4:06 Outside & around SMVT
4:42 What we can learn
5:51 What next

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Credits
Voiceover - Ojas Shetty
Camera - Puneet Sachdev, Pravar Chaudhary, Inza S, Ojas Shetty
Graphics - Inza S
Edit - Pravar Chaudhary

[GowthamV]

The architect who engineered this should be fired. Maybe they dint even use an architect ?

[Varun]

Excellent video, I recently visited this to see what all the hype was about and was very very disappointed. No maintenance, no sitting space, unnecessary fancy roof. The initiative to upgrade railways is great but the government needs to be given critical feedback like this so such mistakes are not made again. Thankfully most problems are easily fixable so hope this video blows up and some top level person in the railways watches it

[pulokborah]

As a civil engineer with a Ph.D. in civil engineering, I completely agree with you. In Indian railways, we need more seats rather than over-engineered and poorly designed stations.

[mdhazeldine]

Hello from the UK! After watching a million urbanist videos from the U.S. it's so refreshing to see something from India. This was a really good breakdown of the issues in this building. I think it's a bit of a mistake to treat train stations like airports. The use-case is completely different. That being said, even if this was an airport, it would be bad. The issues you showed were such basic things that you'd expect architects to learn not to do. On the plus side, it's great to see India investing heavily in railways. But maybe they need a bit of design help. haha

[sassankermani]

watching this as an American who likes public infrastructure realizing this channel only has 9.2K subs is wild, this video hit, good job hope to see more cool stuff from you

[karthikarvindcs]

Looks like the architect had no experience in designing public places

[Mikey]

this channel is definition of underrated

[bharath]

Visvesvaraya is a legend but the university and railway station named after him is a disaster.

[masuttta]

What is the point of glass buildings in India? peak temps reaching 40 to 50 degrees and our fantasy continues. Glad for you did this case study and well.

[keriddunk]

My dad worked in South Western Railway in Hubli. Same thing is built there . He said the same thing. So much corruption and money taken . India won’t improve because of any politicians. People need to change

[jagadeeshks]

My father, a simple farmer and also an ex-counselor used to say,

We plan for a month and build it in 6 months!
But it should be the other way around!!

[kingofgods-wt]

The pan stains all over the walls is a disgrace. We can be poor in terms of wealth but not in terms of dignity of ourselves and our surroundings.

[VineethMuthanna]

You missed a big point. All the platforms except the first platform are Inaccessible. They only have steep stairs. No ramps, no elevators, no escalators. Compared to KSR and YPR it is impossible for the disabled, elderly, and even for a fit person to carry heavy luggage to the directly access other terminals. It's an accessibility disaster.

[heyskanda]

I just got this video randomly on my TL, and I absolutely loved every bit of it! Quality content!

[prakash]

Functionality comes foremost, aesthetics plays a minor part for public places like this.
Kudos to the bengawalk for another banger 🎩

[ajaysindbad]

This video needs to be sent to the railway minister and the railway board to improve future projects

[salamandastron]

I'm from Singapore, my previous recommended vids are all Naruto or Bleach and then there's this video. And I stayed for all of it, watching a dude diagnose architectural problems in a country 4 hours away from my own. I liked it.

[AraliciaMoran]

Hello from France! The staircase design reminds me in part of the one at the entrance of Montparnasse train station (Paris).

It also has a mix of straight and zig-zaging stairs, but a big difference is that Montparnasse is 4 floors high (one underground floor for subway, the station entrance at ground level, and two upper floors for trains). The straight stairs lets you go directly from the entrance to the local trains waiting area, and further to the train tracks; while the zig-zaging stairs on both sides lets you move between all the floors.

[azhrhasan]

It was "made to be inaugurated" against "made to be used". It was all magnificent until inaugurated and transferred to operations.

[prathamshenoy]

1. Calling it "airport inspired" is a disgrace to the airports.
2. Never try to design something to "feel" like something else.
Railway stations are for a different class of people. Design it for them. It can never be an airport.