Kaunas University of Technology (KTU) students’ team has won the first place in the Smart City competition, organised by the architecture and civil engineering magazine “Structum”. The students’ urbanistic solutions for the revival of Lithuanian town Radviliškis, among which is a panoramic slow motion train, were recognised as the most inovative in the competition.
All the teams who participated in the competition had to solve real challenges offered by 7 Lithuanian Municipalities.
“We chose Radviliškis, as one of our team members is from here, so we had access to the local knowledge. Also, Radviliškis is considering itself the capital of railways and is unique for its multiple railway connections”, says Eimantė Jautakytė, one of the students from the winning team.
Firstly, the girls made a thorough analysis of the chosen territory, focusing not only on architectural and urbanistic aspects, but also on its history, local traditions and rhythm of life. The main ideas grounding the urbanistic project for Radviliškis revival are expansion of pedestrian areas and revival of the railway station district.
“After interviews with local authorities and community members we understood that there is a need of a revival of Radviliškis old town areas, where people could spend their free time, and businesses could expand their commercial activities. This would attract the residents and visitors of the town”, explains Gintarė Marozaitė, another young architect of the wining project.
The highlight of the project is a slow-motion panoramic train, which, according to the students, has a strong potential to become the town’s and even the region’s landmark.
“At first, this curvy line in the middle of the design project seemed a bit utopic. However, after discussions and thorough analysis using new urbanism and design thinking methods, we now believe that the panoramic train has a strong potential to become a unique symbol for Radviliškis, a powerful addition to the town’s story, which can feature in all the informational leaflets and tourist maps”, says Aistė Kundrotaitė.
According to the students, the analysis showed that Radviliškis is a town with great development potential: it has a convenient geographic location, interesting history and good perspectives for business development.
The winning team was supervised by Dr. Dalius Šarakauskas. In the competition, organised by “Structum” for the fourth time, all the three first places were taken by the teams composed of KTU students.
