New Model of the Airport
Non-place to place
New Model of the Airport
Non-place to place
Thesis Preparation by: Guillermo L. Fortuno
Advisors: Greg Corso with Amber Bartosh and Lawrence Davis Syracuse University School of Architecture
1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8. 9. 10.
INTRODUCTION CONTENTION AIRPORT TO THE CITY SENSE OF PLACE PRECEDENT+ANALYSIS SITE + CONTEXT PROGRAM VISUAL IDEA GLOSSARY BIBLIOGRAPHY
1. INTRODUCTION
1.[Introduction] An aiport is a facility where passangers connect from/to ground transportation. Descriptions of airports can be divided into landside and airside. Landside descriptions cover how passangers arrive/depart the airport terminal building and move through the terminal building to board the airplanes. Airside describes the movement of the airplanes on the airports surface. This project will be focusing on the Landside of the airport, looking mainly at the terminal as a way to create a sense of place in its inclosure.
1936:
Gatwick airport, London circular with telescoping Model for all future circu such as Charles de Gau
1904: International competition for the new federal capital of Australia (later Canberra)-Donat-Alfred Agache draws perpectives (out of a plane at different heights) of an airport with all its facilities.
World Architecture: Airports
1939:
NY La Guardia 1941 its capa
1904: First airport: Huffmann Prairie - the airport had a road and a rail link
1920
Start of building more permanent airports (used for flying purposes) Passengers changed their behavior and wanted to be flattered and caterd
US is a decade behind the Europeans airport development.
World War I
World War II
Timeline (1904 - present) between wars: huge international air traffic development in Europe
Air travel has been described as the defining mode of transportation of the twentieth century.1 No other form of travel compares with the speed, scale and glamour of contemporary air travel. Flights has opened continents and allowed mass accessibility much as the railways did on a smaller scale, a century ago. In the process, air travel has altered our experience of place and time: it has broadened our sense of geography and human experience.
1917: Architect Tony Garnier revised his “Une Cite Industrialle (1901-4)” & gave it a well structured airport - war has made aviation less romantic.
The airport terminal is the central building of the air transport system. Its architecture reflects the glamour, scale and technological prowess of this fast-growing industry. As air travel becomes more popular and accessible, the airport has assumed greater importance as a fundamentally new and challenging building type. It is a miniature city reflecting the values and aspirations of society at large. National image is reflected more directly in the design of airports than any other building type, with the passenger terminal the key element in public perception. On the stage of world architecture the airport holds an important place. From Eero Saarinen’s TWA Terminal of 1959 at Kennedy Airport to Norman Foster’s Chek Lap Kook Airport of 2000, airport developers have been consistent in their support of innovative design, whether expressed in formal or in technological terms. The airport of the future will continue to push forward the frontiers of architectural design, creating images and structural solutions that become adopted in other building types. Within the typical airport there is urbanism based upon rapid movement; large fluid spaces for social exchange; powerful retail, conference and hotel agglomerations; and an architecture which seeks to give identity to an alienating environment. In this placeless world of international companies (airlines, hotel chains, retailers), the designer sometimes struggles to provide physical and cultural orientation. In spite of accelerating globalization, architecture is the means by which geography and history are established.
America has closed up with its airport development but lacking retail possibilities at its termina
1931: Charles Glover’s King’s Cross elevated airport at London.
1929: Seadrome of Edward Armstrong got almost built, but the great Depression hinded it from being finished.
1914: San’t Elias Citta Nuova: Futuristic City
Akron Airdock: Zeppelin’s hangar
1928: Germany has 160 airliners flying more than 64,000 km a day and carrying 20,000 passengers a month
1927: First Modernist Temelhof terminal by Ernst and Klaus Engler
ng canopy to reach planes. ular terminals and satellites ulie.
1960: PanAmerican at Idlewild (oval cantilivered)
2000:
1990: 1980: London’s City Airport
Calatrava’s Sondica airport terminal for Bilbao
Norman Foster’s Chek Lap Kok,Hong Kong - ground plan is anaeroplane.
1961:
a airport is open and by acity is already too small.
Pereira’s theme building (futurism was back)
Norman Foster’s Stansted, London -struts aesthetic of the early airliners
1945: Liverpool Street airport on skyscraper by Lindy & Lewis.
Airports pier configuration as well as suited models (Orly). Many other models were tested in the 60’s to find the most efficient way of getting people and planes together.
Denver International airport (the tenth busiest airport on earth) -six non intersectinig runways (longest 5km) -no rail link (most passengers never leave the airport)
1990: Grimshaw inspired rather by the modern airliners. -Heathrow, Pier 4a & BA Combined Operations Center.
9/11
1956:
g als
War on Terrorism
1994:
Reinvention of the airport terminal by Eero Saarinen’s Dulles international Airport
JFK Airport -5 times its size -32 million passengers
2010: Still today many old airports are catching up to the late 20th century issues instead of dealing with our 21st century needs.
1974: Radial Systems Diagram is perfect at Charles de Gaulle terminal 1. -circular mother planet with its moons connected by moving walkways.
1956: Eero Saarinen’s TWA
1994: Low cost Southampton airport -half the price of any previous airport by the British Airports Authority.
1956: Zurich airport by Alfred & Helnrich Oeschger (excellent modern terminal)
1970: Berlin Tegel: In the round system
1949: At Idlewild: 18,115 plane movements 222,620 passengers 4,653 tonnes cargo 1,170 tones of air mail
1986:
2004:
Amsterdam’s Schipol tripled in capacity during the following 15 years. -conceived as airport city, with a mall etc. for people going there without catching a flight.
Zurich airport extension is the first european sustainable airport. The extension keeps the level of energy use of 1995 even though the extension is rather big.
1967: Amsterdam’s Schipol: plan like a human or planewith many fingers (piers).
1946: Horace Knoght Glidden’s report on americas airports: lack in the possibilities of extension, often they are outgrown even before their construction was finished,
1984: Gehry’s Aerospace Hall at California Science Center, Los Angeles. -fighter jet as a broche and the expression of the building takes its dynamics in an image.
1. CONTENTION 4 - New Model of the Airport
2.[Contention] The theme of the relationship between airports and the identity of the local has so far been little studied. In the past, designers have been concerned more with studying the airports as a system and its function, than exploring the complex airport machine and its effect on the experience as a whole. Because of this, the airport has become a “non-place”, according to anthropologist Marc Auge’s, an environment that one passes through, but don’t interact with. Even though many programs such as retail and commodity have been adjusted to the airport complex system as an attempt to make sense of place, airports still don’t respond to the identity of the local. “Architecture’s place in the global flow of people, identity, and the city can no longer be taken for granted. Architecture must consider the current conditions, the past histories, and future prospects of its relationship to identity and place within the changing city.”
Airports have become stressful, and confusing places. They are classic examples of what French Anthropologist Marc Augé calls “non-places” – environments that one passes through, but don’t interact with. Places that do not have the significance of a sense of place. A terminal in London looks and feels identical to the one in Paris or New York. As a reinforcement of this notion, popular culture depict airports as featureless, irritating places lacking identity and uniqueness. I investigate the possibility of making the travel experience more memorable and relatable to local identities by making the airport part of the city.
The geography of the non-place begins at the entrance. As soon as a person enters an airport, they are transformed into travelers. The orientation of their surroundings are now based entirely on movement, their possibility of putting roots in the space is foreclosed by their motion. No one entering an airport can experience it as a place to belong, but merely as a conduit to move through. This feeling of dislocation comes from the sense of the place, where the airport functions and looks fairly similar to airports all around the world. Architecture reflects this, with long galleries dominated by moving walkways and escalators. The intimacy with the location is lost when repeated because it does not exist as an individual place. The structure of the airport does not require individuality in order to function. It’s production of repetition and homogeneity is the basis for its efficiency worldwide because it creates and order through which people’s movements can be controlled smoothly. Any intimacy would be swallowed in the airport’s overwhelming sameness. Since everyone moving through the airport is equally unconnected to the space, they remain unconnected to each other.
Rather than seeing the project as one of bringing (physically) the airport into the city, the project elaborates on connecting the city and the airport as one coherent place in the city. As the site is located in the San Juan Bay area, it is surrounded by specific programs such as the Old historical city of San Juan, the San Juan Cruise Port, the Convention Center, Central Park of San Juan, Isla Grande Airport (Domestic airport), Hato Rey (Financial District), and the communities of Miramar and Catano. By bringing in programs that surround the site and including others that bring in the atmospheric and natural aspect of the local landscape, the airport begins to attach to the city giving users a feeling of placeness. Rather than just a machine of air travel located in the outskirts of the city, the airport begins to connect with the city, with its users and visitors.
Airport (non-place)
CITY (place) Airport (non-place)
CITY (place)
Airport (non-place)
CITY (place)
CITY (place)
Airport (non-place)
Airport (non-place)
Airport (non-place)
CITY (place)
CITY (place)
3. AIRPORT TO THE CITY
“
AERO
TROP
OLIS
M S I N
AIR
A B R
PO
AIR
PO
RT -C
ITY
AEROPOLIS
R
N O I G E TR
AIRPO
AVIOPOL I
One part of the design strategy, is moving the airport from the outside the city to the city urban fabric. This would integrated it into the city itself providing proximity and connectiveness with its surrounding and making it part of the major role of the 21st century city. Moving from the traditional Aeropolis and creating an airport that integrates fully to the city.
S
“
U T R
CITY-AIRPORT
AEROTROPOLIS
city
city
(John D. Kasarda)
aerotropolis
airport city
airport
airport
Concept applied to large airports whose scale, size and functions have tranformed them into genuine cities.
An urban plan in which the layout, infrastructure, and economy is centered on an airport. Similar in form and function to a traditional metropolis, which contains a central city core and its commuter-linked suburbs. An aerotropolis is not a city airport.
AIRPORT CORRIDOR
AIRPORT REGION
city
city
(Mauritz Schaafsma)
AEROTROPOLIS
airport region
airport corridor
(John D. Kasarda)
airport
airport
city
This spatial concept derives from the observation that the airport and associated areas are progressively extending towards the center of the city creating a genuine airport corridor. This corridor extending towards the city center is characterized by the presence of an infrastructural spine (rail or road).
A vague and generic concept of an airport predominating a region including the city.
AIRPORT URBANISM
n plan in which the layout, infrastructure, onomy is centered on an airport. Similar and function to a traditional metropolis, ontains a central city core and its comnked suburbs. An aerotropolis is not a cort.
airport
city
AIRPORT REGION
city
Airport not city within a city, but an integration between an airport and the surrounding urban context.
Typical airport-city relation in a urban environment
City
Airport
Breaking the typology of having the airport in the outskirts of the city
City
Airport
Find a feasable area for the airport in the city
City
Airport
Finally the airport become part of the urban fabric
Airport in city
4. SENSE OF PLACE
Sense of Place “The bulldozing of an irregular topography into a flat site is clearly a technocratic gesture which aspires to a condition of absolute placelessness, where as the terracing of the same site to receive the steped form of a building is an engagement in the act og ‘cultivating’ the cite” -Kenneth Frampton, Critical Regionalism
The loss of sense of place is an emotional/psychological occurrence that can arise as a reprecussion to physical manifestations of architectural construction. “Place” is a totality of conrete things that have material substance, shape, texture and color.1 When brought together, these concrete things create character or atmosphere specific to the phenomenal experience of the composition. Humankind can only undestand place at the human scale since it deals specifically with experience. Using Charles and Ray Eames’ Power of Ten as an example, there are different levels on which human interaction occurs - the macroscopic, human scale, and miscroscopic. The last two images in the second row and the first two images in the third row highlight human scale interaction that we are capable of understanding as having a sense of place while the rest, the universal and microscopic and miscroscopic scales I would argue cannot define place. For instance, we understand the feel of our hands as it touches a sheet. Zooming out, we see a man on the sheet resting, shielding his eyes from light which is still relatable to a sense of place. zooming out further, we now see that aman is in a grassy field which triggers memories of similar summertime experiences. lastly, we zoom out to the city of Chicago which can have a sense of place embedded in relation to light and air quality, and temperature of the city but the human scale begins to deteriorate and obscure true phenomenal experience of concrete things in coalescence.
Charles and Ray Eames’ Power of Ten
Since sense of place relies on what is felt during physical experiences at the human scale, the concrete things that define a place make the sense and the place specific. In the opening pages of Peter Zumothor’s Thinling of Architecture he discusses and experience at his aunt’s house as a child where, unknowingly at time, his experience with architecture occurred. “I used to take hold of [the door handle] when I went into my aunt’s garden. That door handle still seems to me like a special sign of entry into a world of different moods and smells. I remember the sound of the gravel under my feet, the soft gleam of waxed oak staircase, I can hear the heavy front door closing behind me as i walk along the dark corridor and enter the kitchen, the only really brightly lit room in the house” -Peter Zumthor’s Thinking Architecture
Not everyone would have the same emotuional connection to Zumthor’s aunt’s kitchen when they touch the door handle but the coalescence of all of the concrete things one experiences when entering that kitchen make it unique and specific. these places are never chosen by humankind, they are experienced.(Norber-Shultz, 8) If its was just the smell or gravel or door handle, Zumthor may not have experienced this place. But it was the composition and totality of all of the concrete things that gave him that sense of place. Relating back to the opening quote regarding placelessness, Frampton further points out that part of the problem is universal technique of modern building conditioned by optimized technology. (Frampton, 16) The statement of bulldozing the topography for a flat site is just one aspect of why placelessness is occusing. Others would include the ease of shipping materials and over-reliance in synthetic.
Doha Art Museum
TWA Terminal at Idelwild airport, designed by Eero Saarinen
“
“
The purpose of architecture is to shelter and enhance man’s life on earth and to fulfill his belief in the nobility of his existence. Eero Saarinen, 1968
5. PRECEDENTS
1919: URBAN RUNWAYS TO SERVE A CITY OF PILOTS
Visionaries imagined a city where civilization would own their own small craft, as we do cars today. An illustration of London News in Otober 1919, showed how a runway could be wedged into the existing urban fabric
runway
urban fabric
city as airport
1922: VILLE CONTEMPORAINE CITY
Landing between skyscrapers - Le Corbusier adapted his Ville Contemporaine city-central airport design in the Plan Voisin. It was appropriately named after and sponsored by the aircraft maker, Voisin.
airport
urban fabric
airport as center of city
1926: LOS ANGELES AIRPORT SKYCRAPER Lloyd Wright (son of architect Frank Lloyd Wright) designed this Los Angeles airport skyscaper in 1926.
airport
urban fabric
skycraper
1927: METROPOLIS
An early 20th century form of architecture born in Italy, characterized by anti-historicism, strong chromaticism, long dynamic lines, and the suggestion of speed, motion, urgency and lyricism. The image is from the movie Metropolis directed by German director Fritz Lang.
airport
skycraper
1928: THE MOON DOOM
As shown in this illustration for Earl L. Bell’s The Moon Doom, from Amazing Stories magazine, the dream was still alive in 1928.
airport
highways
city
1928: THE ‘ARMSTRONG SEADROME’
The ‘Armstrong Seadrome’ was a fully-engineered proposal for tethered relay stations across the Atlantic.
airport
1931: AIRPORT DOCKS FOR NEW YORK CITY
Airport Docks for New York City, designed in 1931 by architect Harry B. Brainerd.
airport
port
1931: PROPOSAL FOR KING’S CROSS
An elevated airport for London. This proposal for King’s Cross by Charles Glover, 1931, aimed to add air travel to an existing interchange where aeroplanes could land on the runways of a huge wheel-chaped structure.
airport city
1934: AN AIRPORT ABOVE THE THAMES
By the 1930s, air travel was considered the glamorous future of travel and cities were looking for ways to accommodate the rapid influx of plane. The drawing appeared in a 1934 issue of Popular Science, proposing an airport on the Thames with an entrance into Westminster Palace.
city as airport thames
1938: MEGASTRUCTURES FOR A MEGAINDUSTRY
Proposed as a solution to the problem of locating an airport in the heart of any big city, a design for a long orientable runway, which could bemounted on circular tracks atop tall buildings, conceived by a French engineer.
runway
city as airport
1939: A SKYSCRAPER-TOPPING AIRPORT
Aerotropolis, What the metropolitan skyport of tomorrow may look like by Nicholas DeSantis. The eight-runway airport would serve commuters from as far as 100 miles away who wanted to fly to work.
runway
skycraper
city
1945: LIVERPOOL STREET STATION
The City of London design for the development of Liverpool Street Station, complete with gyro-plane landing platform, by Lindy and Lewis, 1945.
runway
skycraper
city
1946: A MANHATTAN SUPER-AIRPORT
Multi-level, 900 acre airport along the West Side of Manhattan. The idea was to cut down on the time it took to get from JFK and LGA by car.
runway
port
1950s: A FLOATING TERMINAL FOR NYC
In search of a solution to Manhattan’s airport woes, Norman Bel Geddes imagined a floating runway at the tip of Manhattan, which passangers would access via long tunnel underground.
runway city
tunnel
1970s: NORMAN FOSTER’S HAMMERSMITH FLYOVER An elevated highway in West London, was subject of this 1970s plan by young Norman Foster. Foster imagined razing the highway and replacing it with massive monolith of commercial spaces, offices, bus and train stations, including a landing pad for aircraft up top.
runway
commercial
2020s: LONDON BRITANNIA AIRPORT
A propose to replace the Heathrow airport sometime in 2030. Situated in the middle of the Thames Estuary, it would shuttle passangers via ferry to London and the rest of the country.
airport
runway
airport
airport
runway
runway
runway
In the Middle East the terminal is less a retail mall, more a celebration of meeting and travel. King Abdulaziz Airport Jeddah: Murphy/ Jahn
A sense of national image is required of new airports in the Middle East. New Doha international Airport, Qatar. Architects: Scott Brownrigg and Turner
+ SITE 6. Site CONTEXT + Context
CHICAGO, ILLINOIS // 2100 mi
LA, CALIFORNIA // 3355 mi
LONDON, UK // 4200 mi
NEW YORK CITY // 1600 mi
DF, MEXICO // 2350 mi
SAN JUAN, PUERTO RICO
PANAMA CITY, PANAMA // 1100 mi
CAPE TOWN, SOUTH AFRICA // 6400 mi
SAO PAULO, BRAZIL // 3200 mi
BUENOS AIRES, ARGENTINA // 3600 mi
01: THE LOCATION OF PUERTO RICO Puerto Rico is located between the Caribbean and Atlantic Ocean. Located between North and South America, it being the closest American land to Europe and the South Africa. Even though its a US territory, its ethnicity is more closely to that in South America and Europe.
02: TRANSPORT HUB Its geographic location makes it an ideal aviation transit hub that could efficiently service most parts of the world.
03: INFRASTRUCTURAL CHALLENGES As an island in the Caribbean,flyinf is the main means of transportation between its neighboring islands and surrounding continents.
04: EXISTING AVIATION ROUTES Currently many airlines use Puerto Rico’s international airport as a Hub to connect passengers with domestic flights in the US and international flights to South America.
05: EXISTING AIRPORTS IN SAN JUAN Currently Puerto Rico has seven airports in total around the island, two being international Airports. San Juan, being the capital of Puerto Rico has two airports, SJU being international and SIG being domestic. As part of this proyect, I propose to combine the two and give back that space to the city for future growth.
OLD SAN JUAN
SIG CA TA N
N IO
NT
CO
E NV
CE
Pu e
blo
O
CHANAN
MIR
R
E NT
CON
AM
DAD
AR
O
SAN
O P
T R
HAT
FINANCIAL
San Juan, PR
OCEAN PARK LLORENS TORRE
NTU
S
RC
TO REY
L DISTRICT
E
SJU
Old San Juan Port Convention Center Domestic Airport Central Park of San Juan Developing area Financial District
7. Program
1.Centralized Terminal a. Departure Hall b. Security c. Bag Claim d. Meeting Place e. Entrance/ Exit Access f. Parking/ Rental Car Area g. Curbside 2. Concourse a. Gate Lounge - Departure b. Gate Lounge - Arrival c. Cafes d. Retail e. Viewing platforms 3. Runway a. Runway (Landing and departure) b. Taxi Runway c. Maintenance and Fuelling areas
8. Visual Idea
VSS Enterprise glide flight
Burt Rutan American aerospace engineer noted for his originality in designing light, strong, unusual-looking, energyefficient aircraft.
“
“
Just like when early airplanes were flying in 1910, we didn’t know what the benefits are, but we were doing it because it was fun.
9. Glossary
site:
noun 1. general term used to describe the location intended for architectural construction. Often comprised of existing natural and cultural elements, topography, and climate of the location. "site." Def. 1a. Merriam-Webster's Collegiate Dictionary. 9th ed.
place:
noun 1. a totality made up of concrete things having material substance, shape, texture, and color. Together these things determine and “environmental character”, which is the essence of place. In general a place is given as such a character or “atmosphere”. A place is therefore a qualitative, “total” phenomenon, which we cannot reduce to any of its properties, such as spatial relationships, without losing its concrete nature out of sight. Christian Norberg-Shultz, Genius Loci: Towards a Phenomenology of Architecture. pg.6 (New York: John Wiley & Sons, 1980)
land.scape:
noun 1. all the visible features of an area of countryside or land, often considered in terms of their aesthetic appeal. 2. general term used to describe the location intended for architectural construction. Often comprised of existing natural and cultural elements, topography, and climate of the location. "landscape." Def. 1a. 2a Merriam-Webster's Collegiate Dictionary. 9th ed.
cul .ture:
noun 1. the customs, arts, social institutions, and achievemnts of a patricular nation, people, or other social group. 2. the arts and other manifestations of human intellectual achievement regarded collectively. "culture." Def. 1a. 2a Merriam-Webster's Collegiate Dictionary. 9th ed.
ma.te.ri .al:
noun 1. the matter from which a thing is or can be made. adjetive 2. matter that has quialitieswhich give it individuality and by which it may be categorized "material." Def. 1a. 2a. Merriam-Webster's Collegiate Dictionary. 9th ed.
non.place:
noun 1. environments that one passes through, but don’t interact with. 2. place where people in transit are stationary during a waiting period 3. non-relational, non historical, & not concerned with identity. Auge, Marc. Non-places: introduction to an anthropology of supermodernity. London: Verso, 1995. Print.
na .ture:
noun 1. the phenomena of the physical world collectively, including plants, animals, the landscape, and other features and products of the earth. "nature." Def. 1a. Merriam-Webster's Collegiate Dictionary. 9th ed.
cit .y:
noun 1. a place or situation characterized by a specified attribute. 2. a place where people live that is larger or more important than a town; an area where many people live and work. "city." Def. 1a. 2a. Merriam-Webster's Collegiate Dictionary. 9th ed.
10. Bibliography
"Archaeologies of Place: Places, non-places and supermodernity: on the issues of rooting and uprooting - Archaeologies of Place: Places, non-places and supermodernity: on the issues of rooting and uprooting - N.p., n.d. Web. 12 Sept. 2014. <http://proteus.brown.edu/archaeologiesofplace/7994>. Auge, Marc. Non-places: introduction to an anthropology of supermodernity. London: Verso, 1995. Print. Binney, Marcus. Airport builders. Chichester, West Sussex: Academy Editions, 1999. Print. Cerver, Francisco. Stations and terminals. New York, N.Y.: Arco for Hearst Books International :, 1997. Print. Edwards, Brian. The modern terminal: new approaches to airport architecture. London: E. & F.N. Spon, 1998. Print. Emberson, Steve. Airport interiors: design for business. Chichester: Wiley, 2007. Print. "Foster + Partners." Foster + Partners. N.p., n.d. Web. 22 Sept. 2014. <http://www.fosterandpartners.com/>. Foster, Norman, and Chris Abel. Beijing International Airport: Foster + Partners. Munich: Prestel, 2010. Print. Powell, Ken, Norman Foster, Richard Bryant, and Philip Sayer. Stansted: Norman Foster and the architecture of flight. London: Fourth Estate :, 1992. Print. Saarinen, Eero, and Rupert Spade. Eero Saarinen. New York: Simon and Schuster, 1971. Print. Sandin, Gunnar. "Dealing with non-place in expoitation, belonging and drifting." Nordisk Arkitekturforskning I (2003): 1-19. Print. Stoller, Ezra. The TWA Terminal. New York: Princeton Architectural Press, 1999. Print. "Ultimate Airport Dubai." National Geographic Channel. N.p., n.d. Web. 22 Sept. 2014. <http://www.natgeotv.com/in/ultimate-airport-dubai>. Zumthor, Peter, and Maureen Turner. Thinking Architecture. 2nd, Expanded ed. Basel: Birkhäuser, 2006. Print.