- So one of the main goals in an airport terminal
is simply, here is the aircraft, and here are cars,
and buses, and perhaps even trains.
So how do we shorten that distance?
Take that aircraft, and basically,
move it to a position right there.
[piano music]
Hi, I'm Peter Ruggiero, and I'm the design principal
for the redesign of LaGuardia Airport's Terminal B.
I was privileged to work on the design,
or lead the design of all of these projects.
Today we're gonna talk about
optimizing the design in an airport terminal.
[upbeat music]
So there are three types of airport configurations,
linear, in which we have the land side,
and then the air side.
The planes did not touch the terminal.
They were parked, not too far remotely,
but they are parked outside of the building,
just like the cars were parked outside the building.
The linear model that we see here,
it's very efficient for a particular size of airport,
generally regional airports.
As you can see this one, six gates,
looks like there probably would be plans
for about 200 passenger aircraft.
So for this size airport, it's highly efficient.
So then the airport evolved,
and the industry started to expand,
So, the plane having a direct relationship
to the main terminal, which is referred to as the headhouse,
and that's a term borrowed from trains.
It started with the idea
of taking that same linear building,
and then modifying the air side component
to grow fingers where the planes are located.
If you think of your hand as the main terminal,
the linear, then it grew fingers
to accommodate growth in the airline industry.
So that would be finger concept.
So this is the style of the old LaGuardia.
In 1964 when this terminal opened,
it was a state-of-the-art facility.
It really represented not only where we are in air travel,
but where everyone anticipated us going.
And a few things happened that impacted that.
The first thing was security.
Security was introduced into the terminals,
which created a line right there.
The other thing is that, there's lots of aircraft.
It's an airport, and all those airport planes
were about this big.
They held about 100, 150 people,
they were called 707s and DC9s,
and this was the terminology
that anyone traveling at the time kind of knew.
Suddenly, that size aircraft, in a span of about
less than a decade, was replaced by that.
And suddenly, instead of providing
that much space for the 707,
you needed that much space, or even that much space.
So you can see the impact that,
by the introduction of this one single aircraft,
which quadrupled the capacity of plane,
had on terminal design.
As airports continued to grow,
the design profession started to investigate the idea
of a satellite terminal,
which could be connected to the headhouse,
check-in, and departures, and amenities, and security.
The planes, and the gate lounges
are all located, conveniently, away from the headhouse,
in a satellite facility,
which is connected either a piece of architecture
which can also operate as a finger,
or that same connection could be a bridge, or a tunnel.
What we have in front of us is an example
of a satellite terminal.
This is Charles DeGaulle.
You actually entered the terminal,
went into it to go through the check-in activities,
and security, and then you change direction.
You can see these little bridges, which become tunnels,
and lead to these individual islands,
these remote satellites.
This is our design for the new LaGuardia, Terminal B.
You can see from the image, it utilizes the satellite model,
with two satellites, one on the east, and one on the west.
We obviously had to design a new building
as a replacement to the existing.
The constraint was that the existing
had to remain in operation.
For the sake of clarity, in this image,
the existing terminal is here,
and its roads, coming from the Grand Central,
kinda swing around like that.
And then there were a series of fingers,
which come out of the existing headhouse.
The headhouse and finger configuration
has inefficiencies inherent it its design,
and that occurs, really, right in these locations,
wherever there's an inside corner on the building.
You can't put an airplane in the corner,
because it's an inefficient location.
The other thing, in terms of aircraft operations,
is when an aircraft leaves a gate and turns on its engines,
the thrust, the blast coming out
of the back of the jet engine
basically will knock over anything,
or break anything, damage anything,
within two or three hundred feet behind the plane.
It basically cannot start its engines
until point about right here.
It takes a long time, or a longer amount of time
to get that plane off the gate, and operational,
and on its way to a runway.
So an operational benefit of the satellite configuration,
and the satellites that which are connected via the bridges
is that a plane can actually,
because it can park anywhere along the perimeter,
can actually be backed out of a gate,
and then immediately have a quicker route to the runway,
and then to depart.
So in either case, the aircraft has many options,
of going this way to the runways,
or under the bridges.
And the bridges enable a new route
that previously doesn't exist at LaGuardia,
therefore we believe will contribute
to quicker taxi times from the gate to the runway.
In the existing building,
there are multiple decision points.
So, there's an opportunity to get lost,
that can occur at four points,
four decision points where I have the opportunity
to make the wrong decision.
So when designing the new terminal,
we went from four decision points of the existing building,
to one decision point in the new terminal.
Now I'm going to compare the important areas
of the old LaGuardia, and the new LaGuardia.
When you're traveling, your frustration
is probably attributable to long lines
and inadequate spaces.
The existing check-in counters,
the existing departures hall,
utilizes a series of check-in counters,
which, let's call it the old style,
which is this linear arrangement
that you actually walk up to,
and interact with an airline employee, and check your bag.
As you can see from this photograph,
behind the airline employees is a wall,
you really cannot see where you're going,
so it's already a mystery, if you will,
in terms of where the next step is in the process.
So what we're introducing here at Terminal B
really has become the standard in the industry.
It's referred to as the island check-in,
just literally because the check-in are a series of kiosks,
which are really kind of, as you can see,
almost islands in this large space.
This image, for example, at LaGuardia,
takes place right there, and the check-in counters are here.
And the distance between
the check-in counters and the front doors is very limited,
so typically, as soon as you walk in,
because the ticket counters have a queue,
and then people are trying to walk in between the queues,
there's a sense of congestion, and things are backing up.
You might check in here,
and then because you're closer to this one,
you might walk there,
and realize you're on the wrong line,
and then you might be able to understand
that I can walk along this path
to get to where I'm supposed to go,
or you might reverse yourself and come back,
because I know where I've already been [laughs].
In the design of the new terminal,
we really looked to this idea
of introducing a sense of transparency,
introducing where you're able to see
your next step in the process.
And those check-in positions, as you can see,
are not perpendicular to walking into the building,
they're parallel to it.
We're able to use almost 90% of the side of the island
to check passengers in.
The other benefit of this arrangement is,
many passengers today don't check luggage.
They already have a boarding pass, or it's a short trip,
so they go right from the front door,
through this space, to security.
We've made a very conscious decision, in the design of this,
working with our client,
to try and minimize the dependency on signage,
to allow the design of the terminal
to create this idea that it self-navigates.
So signs are all about the hierarchy of information.
In this environment,
which is pretty neutral architecturally,
and pretty neutral in terms of its palette,
the sign really stands out.
And here, the architecture, as you can see in this image,
because of the nature of it, really pulls you forward,
and then what it's really pulling you towards,
it's pulling you towards a spot of light,
so you're naturally drawn to the light.
Looking at this image,
my eye is immediately drawn to the people themselves,
and this is an argument we always make,
that people contribute a lot to the color of an airport,
to the visual activity.
And also, it's hard to say, it's like, okay,
gat lounges A1 through A8, where are they?
Are they all right there? [laughs]
Or are they to the left, or to the right?
The hierarchy of the information in this image is not clear.
Now let's move on to security.
Security at airports is a necessity.
It is something that we, as a traveling public,
have to endure.
If there's one area that contributes
to people's frustration at airports, it's security.
So in the existing LaGuardia Terminal B,
security was located, and basically retrofitted,
into four locations,
where the headhouse, the main terminal, meets the fingers.
Security is now, really, because of the demands,
the requirements, it demands its own space,
and that space comes with its own requirements, spatially.
As we move through security today,
we're actually arriving at it through a generous portal,
which is close to 150 feet open,
so everyone entering security goes through this portal.
We created this large space here,
which allows for a tremendous amount of flexibility.
In the design of the new terminal,
what this really means, is,
today we have 12, in the future we'll have 22.
When I come through security today,
I'm confronted with this long, narrow finger,
full of congestion.
When I come through security when the new terminal opens,
there is a generous area that allows me
to put my watch back on, to put my jacket back on,
to tie my shoes, to put my suitcase back together.
And then, as soon as you come through security,
there's this wonderful window,
like a window out onto the airfield.
While you're putting your shoes back on,
or trying to think of where the next step is,
I already can see the concourses,
I can see the planes, and I can see the bridges overhead.
The true benefit of seeing the tarmac,
of seeing the apron,
and where the planes are located in the concourses,
you're already able to see your destination.
It puts your mind at ease,
it eliminates the anxiety of the unknown,
helps you gauge a distance.
I can see that my plane is five gates away,
because I can already see that I am on B38,
and I see that big sign that says B38
on the side of the building.
So if we compare the existing concourses,
the fingers at LaGuardia today,
to what is being built,
and what has been designed for the future,
the first noticeable difference is in the dimension.
The existing concourse today
has circulation down the middle,
and then gate lounges on either side of it.
This entire dimension is 65 feet,
and it's pretty much split into thirds,
so the middle circulation is, I think, about 22 feet wide,
between the columns, that really define that space,
and then the balance is split,
about, you know, 30-plus feet on either side.
The proposed concourse is 120 feet,
and the columns are spaced 100 feet apart.
With size comes tremendous amount of flexibility.
Here, there's the possibility of spending time.
We have more flexibility
of how you use your time at the airport.
It contributes to this idea
of being in the civic room at the airport,
as opposed to the processing room at the airport,
the long, linear hallway.
If we want to provide seating for,
let's say 100, even 125 people,
we probably require that much space.
What's available today at LaGuardia
is about that much space.
So you can start to see, really,
the difference between a space which is almost 25 feet wide,
and about nine or 10 feet tall,
versus the replacement concourse
for Terminal B, Concourse D.
The east concourse, already constructed,
the 120 feet between columns,
the ability to allow the circulation to kind of navigate,
less linear, but just as direct.
This is the D Concourse,
you can see the narrowness, defined by the columns,
and where there's not gate lounges,
the space has been infilled with amenities,
and food and beverage.
But just imagine, as there's a line
waiting to get food here,
that line is already queuing up into the circulation space,
and this hold room is undersized,
so people area actually already kinda queuing, and waiting,
for that plane to take off,
or to board that plane in this space.
You can see how, already, in this very inadequate space,
it becomes even further constrained by its uses,
and its ability to satisfy those uses.
We see in this image, this paving in the terrazzo floor
was not original, it was probably from
a generation or two ago,
but the idea here was to create a visual counterpoint
to the long, linear nature of this,
and to start to break it down
into more perceptible modules of scale.
We do the same thing with taking
that little hexagonal pattern,
and start to create areas, this modulation of the floor,
to help delineate your travel,
and to take what is essentially a large,
pavilion-like structure,
and then to populate it with things
that introduce scale, and a much more human quality to it.
When you're standing in a airport,
you want to see as much as possible.
You wanna know where the stores are,
where the retail is,
where my plane is, or where the gates are,
so at least I know I'm walking in the right direction.
Restrooms, other amenities.
Airports today are offering a lot more
than food and beverage as an amenity.
- [Flight Attendant] Ladies and gentlemen,
in preparation for departure, please check...
- We wanted to pay a lot of attention
to arriving in New York.
For that arriving passenger, they begin that journey
as soon as they get off a plane in the concourse,
and then they escalate, or take an elevator
up to the level of the bridge,
so they immediately arrive in this wonderful,
kind of monumental civic space.
And then as soon as they're on the bridge,
they're in a rather unique environment.
[upbeat music]
One of the aspects of terminals of a earlier generation
that was done correctly and has survived,
is how bags are delivered to passengers.
You either wanna get through that space,
because you don't have bags to claim,
or you have to stop and pick up your bag.
And right outside, in close proximity to the baggage claim
is the curb, and the curb is accessible
through a large floor-to-ceiling window,
that actually goes from the ground floor of the building
to the roof, right here.
The two models that are frequently used
are the flat plate, and the inclined baggage carousel,
in which bags are either delivered
to the center of the belt, either from above or below,
so either from a tunnel or from right away in the ceiling.
Unfortunately, this device has been retrofitted
into a lot of buildings where the columns
are right there, or right here,
so the moment you have that column there,
about that much of the belt is not usable,
because you can't stand there and grab your bag,
or chase your bag.
So using that, in the new terminal,
we've allowed for nine of these devices to be installed.
In a smaller area, they provide more of the,
quote, presentation area,
so you can actually put more people around them,
so it's a very, very efficient way,
and practical way for delivering the baggage.
The key to it is to space them far enough apart,
which is generally, a rule-of-thumb is about 60 feet
from the center of one to the center of the other,
because that 60 feet allows for people to queue,
and form another island around it,
with carts, and people waiting, and bags out here,
and again, it's this ease of movement.
In existing terminals like LaGuardia,
the frustration comes out of
a combination of sure, waiting for baggage,
but then the overcrowding situation,
that, once you have your bags,
it kind of doesn't enable you
to freely move through the space.
There's lots of causes for frustration at airports,
everything from delays incurred because of airlines,
because of weather,
but the last thing we'd want to have is the building,
is the terminal contribute to that frustration.
If there's something that's taught us
about these buildings in the last 50 or 60 years,
it's they have to adapt to change.
Space is a great contributor to success in architecture,
and that contributes to kind of a less stressful,
more entertaining, and more memorable experience.