airport design

Winning designs for the airport of the future

July 30, 2019Harriet BaskasAirportsairport design, Airport of the future

What will airports look like in the year 2075?

For seven years, Fentress Architects has been running a contest asking students for their ideas about what the airport of the future might look like.

This year, students from more than 50 countries registered about 500 ideas.

Here are the winning proposals. Which are your favorites?

1^st Place: Infinity Airport

This design takes inspiration from the torus knot, which appears like two overlapping infinity symbols.

“The general shape of this airport concept combines the complexity of the form and the ideology of infinity by creating the circular and endless concourse system,” explains winner Daoru Wang, of North Carolina State University.

2^nd Place: Newark Airport Biophilic Headhouse and Community Nexus

The project uses a rail access and a consolidated terminal to explore the concepts economic analyst John Kasarda described in Aerotropolis, explains Samantha Pires, at the New Jersey Institute of Technology in Newark.

This project “brings economic development to the community that it serves,” said Pires. “It proposes that the Airport of the Future should not be governed by fear and ‘security theater’ that runs modern airports. [Instead] it should be a place for community engagement, job opportunities and a catalyst for neighborhood development and benefit.”

3^rd place: London Heathrow 2075

“In this design, a drive-through concept sits below the airport terminal allows aircraft traffic and waiting times to be reduced,” explains winner Christopher Johnson, at the University for the Creative Arts in Farnham, UK,

“Technological innovations suggest a reduction in physical passports, security and immigration as it moves to an online environment.”

People’s Choice Awards –Y3M

“This design envisions integration of an Elon Musk-like Hyperloop tube system and capsule fuselage technology,” explain winners Chai Yi Yang and Ng Yi Ming of the University of Malaya, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia…. “[T]he new model suggests a seamless transition from rail to flight—elementary yet expeditious.”

People’s Choice Award #2: Six Lane City

“Today, O’Hare International Airport in Chicago extends over 12 square miles, most of which are not fully exploited. We decided to create a new form of city, 650 feet above ground level, which will be built on top of the existing lanes or runways of the airfield,” said winners, Riki Rozenberg, Evelyn Kreslavsky, Mai Whiteson at Tel Aviv University.

“Our goal is to create an aerotropolis—an airport which integrates residential solutions, economic opportunities and cultural experiences, which, we think, will bring people closer together.”

First place wins $10,000; 2^nd place $3000 and 3^rd place $2000. Two People’s Choice Award winners receive $1000 each.

Airports are not islands: there are cities out there

June 27, 2018Harriet BaskasAirportsairport design, urban design

While airports are indeed unique, intriguing – and sometimes frustrating – places all their own, they don’t exist in vacuums. Travelers have to get to them and from them.

The film below explores the relationship between the city and its airports; in this case New York City and its multiple airports.

The film was created on the occasion of the AERIAL FUTURES: Urban Constellations think tank in New York City, and explores ways we might improve air travel and urban life by better connecting cities and airports.

Delta breaks ground on its new LaGuardia terminal.

August 8, 2017Harriet BaskasAirports, Designairport design, Delta Air Lines, LaGuardia Airport

Maybe – someday – we’ll love New York’s LaGuardia Airport. Again.

Signs are pointing in the right direction.

On Tuesday Delta Air lines broke ground on its $4 billion, 37-gate facility at LaGuardia – part of the over-all transformation of the airport we’ve been promised.

Delta’s CEO, Ed Bastian, was there, along with New York Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo and a variety of local and regional dignitaries.

“The groundbreaking at Delta’s facilities represents another step forward as we build an entirely new airport at LaGuardia,” Cuomo said in a statement. “Together with our private-sector partners, we are making rapid progress to create the world-class gateway to the Empire State that New Yorkers deserve.”

Delta’s new terminal promises four concourses with 37 flexibly-sized gates to accommodate Delta’s full fleet; a new, larger Delta Sky Club with a Sky Deck; new hold rooms with more seating; 30 percent more concessions space; and “sustainable and scalable technology befitting of an airport of the future.”

“We know the new LaGuardia is one that New Yorkers will be proud to call their hometown airport,” said Delta’s Bastian. “And we are confident that this investment will further cement Delta as the No. 1 airline in New York, with the best customer service and experience on the ground as well as in the air.”

Here are some drawings released by Gov. Cuomo’s office showing what’s in store. Let’s hope the art and greenery makes it to the final cut.

More on being old in an airport

August 25, 2016Harriet BaskasArchitectureaging suit, airport design, universal design

Here’s a bit more on my experience walking around Seattle-Tacoma International Airport in an ‘aging suit,’ with architects from Corgan as my guides.

The suit, developed in Germany and also referred to as a GERT (or Gerontological Test suit), is a collection of accessories that get attached to different areas of the body to temporarily add impairments that simulate being old – up to 30 years older than you are.

I wore spongy overshoes that made it hard to know when my feet were actually touching the floor; knee and elbow wraps, and a neck brace, to limit my movement and simulate joint stiffness; earmuffs to lower my hearing by about 10 dB; and blurred goggles to reduce my vision.

To make it even hard to walk around the airport, Michael Steiner, a senior associate at Corgan, added a heavy padded vest to my outfit, which brought the ensemble’s weight to somewhere around 30 pounds.

Wearing all that, I headed out into the terminal to experience being ‘old in an airport.’

The blurry goggles made it difficult to see which floor number to push in the elevator.
The spongy shoes made it difficult to know where I was stepping, especially when it came time to get on and off the escalator.

At baggage claim it was really difficult to lean over, grab my test suitcase and pull it up over the lip of the metal wall.

My walk through the airport was escorted, but in this age of “If you see something, say something,” here I was wearing a strange outfit that either made me look like I’d been an accident – or was out to hurt someone else – but no one approached me either to find out what I was up to – or to offer help.

True, I couldn’t quite see or hear other people with those decibel-reducing earmuffs and fuzzy goggles on, but that was exactly the point of putting the suit on in the first place, said Corgan’s Michael Steiner,

“An airport is an incredibly chaotic and busy place, even for someone who is perfectly healthy,” he said, “Take away some of the sensory inputs such as sight, hearing and mobility and couple those with a busy environment and you’ll get a different viewpoint of how someone decides to move through the space to get where they need to go.”

Or decides that they won’t bother to try to make their way through the airport at all.

(See my At the Airport column on this experience on USA TODAY)

Taking an airport walk as an old person

August 23, 2016Harriet BaskasArchitecture, Designaging, airport design, Corgan, mobility issues

Monday’s assignment was another one for the books: go the airport, meet a couple of guys from the Dallas-based Corgan architecture and design firm, let them outfit me in a weighted vest, knee pads, padded shoes and assorted other items that simulate being 30 years older than I am, and take a walk.

The goal? To experience the challenges of moving through a busy, crowded airport without the pep, eyesight and navigational fearlessness of a much younger person.

I’m writing up the details of this educational and exhausting day for tomorrow’s At the Airport column on USA TODAY, but here’s a pic of me trying to get a suitcase up and over the lip of a bag claim carousel.

No laughing please…