Belgrade is the only major European capital that currently lacks its own Metro line. When the competition for designing its future stations was announced, we felt compelled to submit a proposal. Our efforts were rewarded with a second-place finish in the competition.

As Belgrade becomes a modern metropolis, the metro line itself should follow this process with its identity, welcoming what the future brings. It remains inseparable from its context and the ‘spirit of the times’ present at each station, so we defined the most important aspects of contemporary life in a modern city and assigned them to each station individually, based on which the entire design emerged. These concepts are sustainability, mobility, optimization, nature, technology, history, culture, tradition, and regeneration.

Each station is treated specifically. Through each station, relative to their context, we distinguish specific elements: rhythmic and sustainable structures and materials, mobility achieved through physical structures that are easy to navigate and understand, elements of naturalness due to the proximity of green zones, the most modern technological elements of architecture, treatment of space relative to the existing context with the strength of circles and concentricity, the superposition of a large amount of glass and the old city core, application of archetypal elements translated into modern materials integrating with the existing context.

The competition guidelines had already defined easy-to-maintain, economical, and energy-efficient materials, and generally, the entire design of each station remained within that range, with attempts to follow the design concepts of the stations through discreet reflections, colors, and textures. Specific materials were chosen for the “Sajam” station, as the entire “Belgrade Fair” represented a kind of technological breakthrough at the time it was created and still today serves as a gathering place for innovations. In that spirit, we wanted its materialization to keep pace with the times and be built from prefabricated 3D printed elements using the most modern technologies.

Approaches to metro stations are designed to be comfortable and, above all, efficient for people with reduced mobility. The primary functional design project includes elevators from the ground level, easily accessible from pedestrian zones to the lowest points of the stations at the access platforms near the trains.