Competition
Participation

Client
U-Bahn Martinsried Project Management Ltd & Co KG

Competition management
Baustein GmbH

Architecture
allmannwappner GmbH

Project team
Frank Bernhard Vetter
Markus Tuppen

The lighting is neither purely functional nor merely for effect. Daylight and artificial light make the station's unique location just below the surface palpable – with a direct connection to the outside world. Already in the stairwell, the transition from top to bottom, from light to dark, is staged: at the start of the platform, the illuminance increases significantly, visually removing the threshold. Once on the platform, the ceiling appears to dissolve into light and form.

The openings to the surface allow for a clearly perceptible, but not dominant, daylight incidence during the day. A large-scale rhythm of brightness emerges above the platforms, making the connection to the city above visible.

Passengers entering the station around midday and waiting for the underground will experience the time of day through a subtly bluish backlighting of the ceiling structure. The light spreads sideways in overlapping patterns on the walls, blurring the edges of the space. This creates a sensory impression of daylight with a diffusing, cloud-like ceiling and changing „sky conditions“.

Energy-efficient LED light tubes integrated into the ceiling structure provide functional illumination for the platform area while simultaneously brightening the ceiling. They are freely accessible from below but not visible at a shallow viewing angle. Controllable light tubes with amber and blue LEDs, positioned above the ceiling, alter the light colour throughout the day, creating a subtle colour gradient in the visible underside of the ceiling.

In the evenings, the station is presented in a warm light environment reminiscent of a sunset. The higher illumination level beneath the openings is maintained but transforms into a pleasant warm white lighting. Staircases are clearly highlighted by wall-mounted and handrail lights, visible along the entire platform length. A gentle gradient of brightness intuitively leads passengers towards the outside.

This visual connection to the platform level also remains at the surface. Circular lights tensioned in the smoke extraction openings illuminate their covers, giving them a subtle amber shimmer. This makes the underground level discreetly visible in the urban space – the station can be experienced as a place continuously staged by light between the city and the underground.