design is in the air

Airport and Airline aesthetics are recovering from a thirty year tailspin as top architects and designers are hired to create a new experience.

They say the world is shrinking, but it isn't really. Frequent air travellers, especially those in economy class, will tell you that smaller seats and longer ticket lines are combining to create the opposite perception. Budget conscious travellers and budget obsessed airlines have conspired to reduce what was once an adventure to an ordeal. The ocean liner in the sky has given way to a flying public bus.

But there are signs today that air travel is coming out of its thirty year tailspin. To cater to the needs of a growing 'kinetic elite' - essentially nomadic executives - designers are infusing style into airlines as a marketing tool and architects are being hired to create airports which are increasingly acting like cities themselves.

Perhaps the most ambitious proposal at present, 'Airport City', an artificial island 10 kilometres in diameter in the North Sea off the coast of Holland, has been developed by Dutch architect Rem Koolhaas' firm Office for Metropolitan Architecture as consultants to Amsterdam's Schipol airport. Connected to the mainland by high speed rail and a freeway, Airport City would be a new hub for Europe, a 24 hour airport and a fully functioning city on its own.

For environmental, social and political reasons Schipol and other European hub-airports such as Frankfurt, London Heathrow and Paris are each nearing capacity with little option for expansion. Koolhaas' $20 billion plan would dramatically increase Holland's relative importance vis-a-vis its European neighbours and, at the same time, open vast tracts of land on the mainland for development and parkland in one of the most densely populated countries in the world.

Koolhaas' plan recommends the creation of an intensely urban condition including the biggest shopping centre in Europe, hotels, apartments, restaurants, night clubs, casinos and other forms of entertainment as well as a business district based on the models of Silicone Valley and Hollywood film studios. 'Airport City' would provide a central meeting place for all of Europe, especially the 'kinetic elite' for whom time is precious.

Koolhaas has been considering the idea of airports replacing the city and becoming, at the same time, both hyper-global and hyper-local. They are global in the sense that they are increasingly filled with the same multi-national retailers and brands which are available everywhere, but also hyper-local in that they frequently display museum-like representations of local culture.

Describing the contemporary airport in his 1995 book S,M,L,XL Koolhaas says, "like a drastic perfume demonstration, photomurals, vegetation, local costumes give a first concentrated blast of the local identity (sometimes it is also the last)".

He could have been describing Vancouver's new airport in which travellers' experience is designed to allow views of the local mountains while walking through various indigenous art installations - some on loan from the local Museum of Anthropology.

Vancouver firm Architectura has, in recent years, developed a reputation as a leading airport design firm. Building on the success of the Vancouver terminal which has been recognized as the most popular airport in North America in a survey conducted by the International Air Transport Association, Architectura are now involved in designing airports around the world.

In recent weeks the firm has been awarded the contract to design Ottawa's new $110 million terminal in association with local firm Brisbin Brook Beynon.

Architectura President Stanis Smith believes that airport design is undergoing a significant change of focus. The old-style airports which were airline-centred 'people processors' are being replaced by something more closely resembling a shopping mall.

"The biggest change is an intense focus on non-aeronautical revenues". Smith explains that many airports now look to parking, retail, commercial, hotels, meeting facilities and food and beverage uses for up to 50 % of their revenues. Until recently airport retail consisted predominantly of magazine and souvenir shops tucked away in insignificant corners. Smith's research in the area suggests that travellers have altered their expectations of airports considerably.

"Increasingly, they are comparing the experience that they get in an airport to that which they get in high end malls elsewhere."

In the global economy it is becoming increasingly difficult when travelling to find a gift in one city which isn't readily available in many others. Smith sees a significant trend toward cultivating local particularities in the planning of airports today.

"Every airport we are working on, without exception, is putting an emphasis on 'what local retailers can we put in here?' and they're prepared to pay a price to actually not take the revenue from a McDonald's or other multi-national in favour of somebody who really is valued by the local community." Apparently nothing is more common than the desire to be exceptional.

Toronto's Pearson airport is undergoing a major expansion jointly designed by architect Moshe Safdie Architects, Skidmore, Owings & Merrill International and Adamson Associates Architects. The first phase of what will eventually be a $4.4 million expansion will be completed in 2003. Although the art displayed and retail uses are yet to be determined, the architects have decided to reference the regional topography.

Between the ticketing and boarding areas, Safdie says "there is a great granite wall, actually pinkish-grey granite, and we were thinking of the Ontario escarpments and the kind of layering of rock that you get in the northern Ontario landscape."

Based largely on traditions carried forward from train stations, ticketing areas have typically been the most prominent spaces in airports. The grand concourse of airports is being re-considered as internet and other forms of electronic ticketing lessen the need for large spaces. Now that the majority of travellers' time is spent beyond security lines, greater emphasis is being placed on quality of furnishing, interesting spaces, natural lighting and all-important retailing.

While most North American lounges tend to resemble upscale racquet clubs in decor, Air Canada's lounge in Vancouver's international arrivals area is an inspired piece of design. Award winning Patkau Architects, whose work includes Vancouver's Emily Carr Institute of Art & Design and the upcoming Grande Bibliotheque in Montreal, were hired to design a lounge which would cater to the needs of the bleary eyed international business traveller.

Upon arriving in Vancouver, Air Canada's 'Elite' and 'Super Elite class of travellers can take a shower, have their suit steamed, shirt ironed and shoes shone in preparation for the working day ahead.

The elegance of the space is especially striking given its context. Completely internalized within the airport - down a service corrider behind a Burger King in fact - the innocuous site was particularly challenging.

In less than 3000 square feet and with no view, no windows or natural light the Patkaus succeeded in designing a room with extensive use of local woods which does not feel claustrophobic.

"We wanted to create a space that was very ambiguous about its condition" John Patkau says. "This is a completely circumstantial response to the site that we had within the airport. We played games with light and transparency which make it unclear as to what your relationship to the natural world is."

A computer program operates a lighting system which approximates natural outdoor light conditions and also simulates the effect of clouds moving through the sky intermittently blocking the sun. Subtly, or even subliminally, the lounge's occupants are comforted by the environment, in spite of the fact that it is purely synthetic.

Taking this artificiality a step further, and possibly a step too far, is British Airways' lounge within London's Heathrow airport. Travellers there are treated to pumped in scents, similar to aromatherapy, of either sea air or cut grass.

Toronto architects Kuwabara Payne McKenna Blumberg have recently won an international competition to design the first airport lounge for airline consortium Star Alliance in Zurich to be completed in the summer of 2001. While the competing firms each used technology as a central concept of their proposals, KPMB sought to minimize the role of computers, telephones and televisions, adopting the more serene metaphor of a garden.

"Ours is relief from Rem Koolhaas, this is the resistance. If someone invites you into their garden, you are really privileged" explains lead architect Bruce Kuwabara. "To me technology isn't a concept for a lounge."

In the air, as on the ground, airlines are taking steps to reduce the stress of travel while upping the style quotient. Virgin Atlantic Airlines, which begins flying between London and Toronto in June, has built its reputation on challenging the conventions of a staid airline industry. Virgin's slogan 'more experience than our name suggests' says it all. Previously unheard of services such as in-flight massages and beauty treatments and the recently announced stand-up bar onboard are all part of a successful attempt to build a brand around a unique experience.

Re-opening the eternal debate of style versus substance in this country, the fledgeling Roots Air took to the skies in late March. With a self-imposed mandate to return to the romance of air travel, in marked contrast to the utilitarian, conservative aesthetics of traditional airlines, Roots Air staff were outfitted with stylish outfits and all meals were served on fine china. For a company best known for its sweatshirts and inexpensive leather jackets, Roots seemed to be chasing an exclusive and perhaps non-existent clientele of monied aesthetes.

Well, forget all that. Less than six weeks after their inaugural flight, Roots Air was unceremoniously grounded. The market has spoken. Added value is all well and fine, but added cost can be the death of an upstart airline.

In the U.S. however, there is a rapidly growing airline, JetBlue, which is providing the irresistable combination of high style and low cost. While Roots Air was attempting, and rarely succeeding, to get CDN $2500 for a return Gold class ticket from Vancouver to Toronto, JetBlue offers similar leather seats throughout their brand new planes, plus free individual 24 channel satellite television service to every seat for a fraction of the cost. Seattle to New York return is only U.S. $258.

Since January of 2000, JetBlue has been quietly growing its operation, flying out of New York's John F. Kennedy airport's Terminal Six, designed by I.M. Pei of Paris' Louvre pyramid fame. From 200 feet, it is obvious this is not an ordinary low-cost carrier. The midnight blue 'Prada-esque' uniforms of ticketing and on flight staff have been recently chosen by New York's Fashion Institute of Technology as an example of 'utilitarian chic'.

JetBlue is also targeting Canadian cities with recently announced service to Seattle, Buffalo and Burlington, Vermont - each approximately two hours drive from Vancouver, Toronto and Montreal respectively.

As technology ceases to be a fashion statement, architects and designers are looking for new ways to enhance the experience of air travel. Fuelled by airlines and airports' desire to cater to a growing kinetic elite - style and design are being employed as marketing tools. How effective they will be depends largely on where these people stand on the style versus substance debate.