Three new stops and a viaduct along the Plovdiv-Filipovo line. A social-spatial vision.

Client: NET Engineering SpA
Year: 2025 - 2026
Location: Plovdiv, Bulgaria

Embedding social value in the transformation of the Plovdiv–Filipovo railway corridor.

In Plovdiv, we developed a social-spatial vision for three new train stops along the Plovdiv–Filipovo line. The railway is set to be doubled and lifted above street level—transforming a piece of hard infrastructure into a potential civic asset. This line used to be a divisive element with same level crossings. This intervention reclaims a 700-meter strip of land for civilian use, and opens up the possibility for a seamless pedestrian connection North-South and East-West.
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Rather than treating this as residual space, the project starts from a different question:
How can these stops be integrated into the city, and how can the reclaimed space be returned to the city and its neighborhoods in a way that fosters ownership and long-term value?

Approach

From the outset, the focus was on embedding social value early in the process—not as an add-on, but as a structuring principle.
​In infrastructural projects, there is a strong tendency to translate ambitions into measurable and controllable parameters. While necessary, this often reduces what makes places meaningful: a sense of ownership, identity, and everyday use. This project takes a different position.

Social value is understood as something that unfolds over time. It requires space—to be appropriated, adapted, and expressed by the communities that live around it. This also calls for a design language that is not only functional, but legible and open enough for people to recognize themselves in it.

Exploration

The project explored different architectural concepts for the train stops—testing how they could take on different roles and degrees of presence within the urban fabric.
In parallel, multiple scenarios were developed for the 700-meter reclaimed strip: from connective public space to more locally anchored places for everyday use. Each scenario tested a different way the space could be returned to the city and its communities—socially, spatially, and over time. 
The design explorations also looked at how we might build a continuous pedestrian and cycling experience along the train track, connecting areas that have been historically disconnected, and preserving crossings and informal connection lines that have become part of the daily habits of the area.

Key Question

A central challenge is how to anchor these intentions in decision-making processes that tend to favour measurability and certainty. Rather than a fixed blueprint, the project resulted in a set of spatial principles, scenarios, and images that can guide choices over time—without closing down future possibilities. This way we give image, substance and concrete parameters for how the social value can be embedded and preserved for the years to come, creating the possibility for future collaborations and interventions with and by the National Rail Infrastructure Company, Plovdiv Municipality and local organisations.

Collaboration

This is a design research by Kornelia Dimitrova, Aukje Goossens and Aleksandar Tadic. The project was developed in collaboration with InfraPro Consult, NET Engineering SpA, NET Engineering ltd., EQE Control ltd, the National Railway Infrastructure Company and the Plovdiv municipality.

The work was commissioned by NET Engineering SpA as part of the Plovdiv rail junction upgrade. The Plovdiv–Filipovo section forms part of the core Trans-European Transport Network (TEN-T) and the European transport corridor connecting the Baltic, Black and Aegean Seas. The project is supported by the European Commission and commissioned by the National Railway Infrastructure Company to the consortium of InfraPro Consult, NET Engineering SpA, NET Engineering ltd. and EQE Control ltd.