ARRIVAL
[ ]
DEPARTURE
an investigation into the temporality of waiting
We are in a place where all we want is to escape. We don’t belong here; this isn’t our destination. It’s a temporary gate in which we are suspended. In a culture addicted to instant gratification We are constantly checking our watch. Tick… Tock… We are disengaged from our place, distracted by luxury and technology. This temporality is rich with possibility, yet the curtain is pulled over. An ensemble awaits its spotlight.
This project asks the question, how can architecture influence experiences between two moments when one is temporarily suspended in time? An airport terminal is an architecture type in which the user experience is bound by limits, an inevitable and unescapable wait. The concept is to trade the duration of time for intensity, to create a space that allows emphasis and escape. The project will act as a time capsule for all people, and the spaces within it will provide experiences that open an opportunity for the exceptional and not the expected. There are two phases to this project. The first is the above ground terminal concourse in which the expected program is allowed to occur. There exists conceptual ideas within its design that reinterpret the idea of a modern Hangar-Depot in which a relationship between the airport, the plane and the user is emphasized. Placing passengers and users in a relationship with their surroundings will allow for engagement with one’s place. Instead of the architecture sheltering its users from natural experiences and the mechanics of the airport, it will celebrate them. In this phase design concepts will consist of transparency between the exterior and interior environment, form and its relation to transforming waiting into an experience, and zones of intensity and tranquility and their transition between the two. The second phase in which the design is develop in detail is the underground 24-hour city. Here is where the exceptional will occur. By inverting the program below the horizon this space becomes a time-capsule for all people. Experiences are directed internally through the implementation of a communal exchange, hotel, theater, cafeteria, and night club.
ma sco nci al aco e/T tional n Fra tion attl % Sa Interna % Se Interna 17.94
% Sa
15.02
30.04
y e Cit lt Lak tional rna Inte
l Pau St al polis- tion rna Inte
are O’H go tional ica % Ch Interna
nea
% Min
28.60
17.49
tro it Me y tro unt Co % De yne Wa
17.40
al od dia onal tion wo uar rna al ernati olly Inte tion % LaG e-H mi dal rna y Int 29.06 der ert Inte % Mia Lau rk Lib ort 18.26 wa %F % Ne 27.12
30.20
Average Wait Time by Airport: July 2013-2014 Salt Lake City International: Salt Lake City, UT
O’Hare International: Chicago, IL 12,045 people waited 2+ hours Newark Liberty International: Newark , NJ
Although O’Hare does not have the highest percetnage for flight delays, it does have the higher percentage of wait time in minutes compared to Newark.
O’HARE International Airport Chicago, IL
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I chose O’Hare International Airport as the place to insert my project. Although O’Hare did not rank number one in the top 5 international airports with the highest delay percentage, it did have the highest percentage of passengers waiting over two hours. Because of this I believe it would be the best site for the project. exchange platform 1/32” = 1.0’
There currently exists an O’Hare Modernization Program (OMP) in which the runways for the airport are being redirected in the east-west direction and new terminals are being added. I examined the new master plan proposed for the OMP and identified the new Terminal 7 on the west side of the airport as my site boundary. Based on the required number of gates and dimensions needed for the apron I conceptually formed the above ground terminal and concourses to act as a physical hangar-depot for the planes and passengers. The placement of the two concourses formed a spatial environment similar to a city square. From this notion, I inserted the unexpected underground within the city square.
Arrival and Departure flight patterns of O’Hare arrival departure
time capsule
Airport terminals are hybrids, part transport interchange, part factory, part distribution centre, part shopping mall. Although this statement is true, it categorizes terminals into a generic type; but like anything with place, a terminal should have an experiential identity. People rush to get to the terminal by whatever means, then they find themselves marooned for an hour or more in limbo, then rush off somewhere else on a plane.
Like the aircraft waiting in an airplane graveyard, passengers have no identity or purpose while trapped within the security gates of an airport terminal. But unlike the retired aircraft, the passengers’ place is temporary and has the opportunity of becoming an experience beyond waiting at security check points, luggage claim, or for connecting flights.
Program
24HOUR terminal
Places for exchange (thoughts, ideas, relics) An airport terminal is the only place where people from many various cultures are forced into close proximatey with each other. They prescribe the richest opportunities for cultural exchange. The inverted pyramid creates a capsule from these exchanges to to happen organically. Suspended platforms are minimallly programed so that events can vary daily and moveable furniture allows for the temporality of the space.
circulation and play platform 1/32” = 1.0’
Zones for experience (play, rest, consumption) Exceptional experinces are allowed within the time capsule. In the lower portion of the volume there exists a theater and night club which both are transformative spaces based on their time of use. Various hotel rooms populate the volume’s walls and a zone for resturants and drinks is hidden behind a translucent glass wall opposite of the theater.
The ‘Hangar-depot’ was a common concept in inter-war American airports where the planes, passengers and staff all mingled in one big building.
terminal 7
O’Hare Modernization Plan
The first Paris Le Bourget of the 1920’s shows the airport as a small city. Hangar buildings surround a civic square.
left: Lloyd Wright’s 1926 Los Angeles airport skyscraper right: Earl L Bell’s The Moon Doom, 1928.
Hendon was London’s first serious airport, and it attracted large crowds at its pre-Great War air shows.
Final planning proposed for OMP
arrival and departure platform 1/32” = 1.0’
Hangar
Hangar
1300 passengers 264 passengers
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192 passengers
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Passenger-Flight Volume Analysis November 27, 2013
Depot
User Volume Relationship Analysis
Hangar
Typologies
Depot
Passenger Staff Pedestrian
Existing
Aircraft
Proposed
distribution center machine transport interchange shopping mall
After choosing O’Hare as my site I analyzed the usage of the airport in relation to the time of day. The diagram above shows the passenger-flight volume for one day in the existing terminal 5 and it reveals that the busiest hours are between 11:00 am and 7:00 pm with hardly any usage during the night. The airport shuts down after the sun sets leaving those stranded in the airport with nothing to do.
24 HR Terminal
The program I am proposing will create a hangar-depot relationship that is not segmented by the time of day. Instead the terminal will turn into a 24 hour space for experience where the user typologies are closer in relationship to each other. site plan at 1/4” = 1.0’ 1/16” = 1.0’
theater | eateries | night club 1/32” = 1.0’