30.04% San Francisco

International

17.94% Seattle/Tacoma

International

15.02% Salt Lake City

International

17.49% Minneapolis-St Paul

International

28.60% Chicago O’Hare

International

17.40% Detroit Metro

Wayne County

18.26% Miami International

27.12%Fort Lauderdale-Hollywood

International

30.20% Newark Liberty International

29.06% LaGuardia

Salt Lake City International: Salt Lake City, UT

O’Hare International: Chicago, IL

Newark Liberty International: Newark , NJ

Average Wait Time by Airport: July 2013-2014

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.

12,045 people waited 2+ hours

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.

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 ex-

amined 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.

O’HARE International Airport Chicago, IL

Arrival and Departure flight patterns of O’Hare

arrival

departure

O’Hare Modernization Plan

terminal 7

-5 -4 -3 -2 -1 UTC +1 +2 +3 +4 +5 +6 +7 +8 +9 +10 +11 +12-6-7-8-9-10

+14-11

+13+12

time

caps

ule

24HOUR terminal

1/16” = 1.0’

site plan at 1/4” = 1.0’

theater | eateries | night club 1/32” = 1.0’

arrival and departure platform 1/32” = 1.0’

circulation and play platform 1/32” = 1.0’

exchange platform 1/32” = 1.0’

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 cul-

tural exchange. The inverted pyramid creates a capsule from these exchanges to to hap-

pen organically. Suspended platforms are minimallly programed so that events can vary

daily and moveable furniture allows for the temporality of the space.

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.

Program

Passenger-Flight Volume Analysis November 27, 2013

Hangar

01:00 02:00 03:00 04:00 05:00 06:00 07:00 08:00 09:00 10:00 11:00 12:00 13:00 14:00 15:00 16:00 17:00 18:00 19:00 20:00 21:00 22:00 23:00 24:0024:00

Hangar

Depot

264 passengers

1300 passengers

192 passengers

Hangar Depot

Exis

ting

Prop

osed

24 HR Terminal

User Volume Relationship Analysis

Typologies

Passenger

Staff

Pedestrian

Aircraft

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.

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.

Final planning proposed for OMP

shopping mall

distribution center

machine

transport interchange

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.

The ‘Hangar-depot’ was a common concept in inter-war American airports where the planes, pas-sengers and staff all mingled in one big building.

Hendon was London’s first serious airport, and it attracted large crowds at its pre-Great War air shows.

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 skyscraperright: Earl L Bell’s The Moon Doom, 1928.

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 be-tween two moments when one is temporarily suspended in time? An airport ter-minal 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 relation-ship 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.

ARRIVAL DEPARTURE[ ] an investigation into the temporality of waiting