Uploaded on 2015-05-30 by BeatrizPalv

[1]: https://edxuploads.s3.amazonaws.com/1432989398232533.jpg *Photo taken by me on May 24th 2015 in Atocha Suburban Station. Madrid, Spain.* Atocha Station is the biggest reception space of train infrastructure in Spain and the most important in the southern Europe. The photo above shows part of the *Suburban Station*: railway alignment of ten tracks served by five platforms to connect the city centre with the main surrounding towns. The whole “Atocha Complex” gathers as well a *High-Speed and Intercity Station* (fifteen tracks served by eight 10 m wide platforms and an arrivals terminal), a Subway Station (line L1), a Bus Station for more than ten bus routes, a *Car Park* with space for almost 200 vehicles, *Shops and eating places* and even a *Tropical Garden* (with more than 10,000 plant species in an area of over 4,000 m2 under a metal canopy). Sheltered by the beautiful old station building, the Atocha Station complex erects as a totem of urban design since the very first attempt in 1888 until nowadays. Million passengers and visitors every year, with their needs and energy flowing all around that huge urban system. Once the dimensional space design is solved, electricity supply could be seen as the most visible demand, nor only for the station itself but for the functionality of the railway service. Presuming that underground distribution could be possible for high voltage (in order to assist the vast consumption needs) apparently nothing can be done with the aerial net of overhead power cables for the trains. This means that, until a new safe and affordable technology was developed to move the trains (gas or hydrogen? or water? engines, to mention some ideas) the shape of the railway planning still has to be considered as a *3D net in the territorial scale*. As a believer in public transportation as one of the main tools aimed to sustainability of cities, I mention this issue in order to focus on a step forward: would it be possible in the future cities to have *an underground functional level and an open space liveable level*?. Our dependency on infrastructure is a fact and in some way we have already been able to get it in building scale. However, and connecting to the topics of week 6, I have serious doubts about all the negative impacts that a disrupting underground level could cause over the environmental system in which is placed. Now I would call this “the sustainability of the visible vs the invisible” … something else to think about :)