What is a user-centered airport?
French anthropologist Marc Augé worried that many spaces in our modern world were becoming non-places that lacked attachment to their local surroundings and created a disconnect for those passing through them, from cookie-cutter hotel rooms to vacuous transit halls and rootless airports that left travelers wanting more.

Recognizing this, leading airports around the world are transforming from in-between spaces, where everything feels standardized and hurried, to places of experience, where local culture is expressed and user needs are elevated. A place where a business traveler can find a workspace and a child a playground. A fast-track for people in a hurry or a quiet rocking chair for respite-seekers. For those inclined to dwell, an art exhibition or a dining experience. At Boston Logan International Airport, passengers dine on fresh fare at Legal Seafoods akin to the city’s flagship restaurant. Likewise, in Madrid’s Barajas International Airport, travelers enjoy authentic Spanish tapas like jamón Ibérico.

A user-centered airport prioritizes well-being, carefully considering how environmental conditions like light, sound and ambient quality help ease the stress of travel and elicit feelings of delight. It provides simple, intuitive signage to help people find their way. It’s a place where the physical and digital converge to extend reality, where a traveler can connect, stream, share and immerse themself. It prioritizes physical and psychological accessibility, encouraging movement and providing the right amount of space arranged in the right ways to minimize crowding and wait times.

Why should airport operators prioritize user experience through design?
User-centered design is not only a philosophy but a practical platform to cultivate positive passenger experiences and ultimately keep those airport customers coming back.

A user-centered airport is also one that delivers benefits to its operators and its community. A one percent increase in passenger satisfaction generates growth of 1.5 percent in non-aeronautical revenue on average. Retail concessions remain the largest generator of non-aeronautical revenue at 30.2 percent and are forecasted to grow globally at $26.25 billion between now and 2025. In addition to the financial boost, airports — as gateways to their communities — foster civic pride when they positively reflect their local identity and generate positive impressions to the traveling public.

How does ArchTam design airports for users?
To create spaces that elevate user experience, airport operators need a trusted partner who specializes in user-centered design and brings expertise in human behavior, well-being and environmental psychology. Over the past 50 years, ArchTam’s People + Places Advisory (PPA) has worked with a broad range of clients — transportation centers, workplaces, universities, hospitals, and stadiums — to build industry-leading capabilities in user experience that puts people at the center of design.

PPA follows a rigorous, evidence-based process to help clients shape and elevate their customers’ experiences. Our approach involves up-front visioning with airport operators and their stakeholders to determine goals and performance metrics. We then dig deeper into user needs through surveys, interviews and focus groups.

We also use a mix of engaging and interactive design thinking exercises that put designers, operators and collaborators in the users’ shoes. This includes persona development, journey mapping, design fiction, and scenario planning, to name a few. These more subjective insights are validated with hard data on airport operations and passenger needs, benchmarks, academic research, and ArchTam’s in-house expertise.

PPA partners with ArchTam’s aviation design specialists to translate airport user needs into actionable design criteria. This collaboration weaves together traditional design requirements with experiential features, resulting in spaces that meet airports’ functional demands while creating unique “wow” moments throughout passengers’ journeys.

Perhaps the best part is that our process can be easily scaled up or down depending on each client’s specific needs. Our goal is always to help airport operators explore how sociocultural, economic and technological trends intersect with aviation design. By placing the focus on the airport’s myriad users and their diverse needs, we’re building a roadmap to delivering a resilient, enduring facility — an airport that brings the future to the present by personalizing the journey from curb to gate and everywhere in between.

The post From curb to gate: It’s all about the user experience appeared first on Blog.

Airports in the United States generate more than $1.4 trillion in annual economic activity and support nearly 11.5 million jobs. With air traffic expected to more than double in the next 20 years and the average U.S. airport almost four decades old, expansions and renovations are operational and economic necessities.

Massport’s Terminal B Optimization Project. Our work on the Logan International Airport’s Terminal B Optimization Project in Boston, undertaken for Massport, demonstrates the key roles that communication, phasing and an emphasis on the passenger experience play in advancing terminal construction. Embracing these three principles as we maintained around the clock airport and tenant operations, enabled ArchTam to deliver the project ahead of schedule while ensuring safety and comfort for builders and the public. In short, Terminal B is the epitome of continuous operations done right.

The completed project accommodated American Airlines’ consolidation onto a single pier and incorporated renovations to 125,000-square-feet of the existing Terminal B and a 60,000-square-foot terminal expansion. Work entailed consolidating three security checkpoints into one modern checkpoint, extensive holdroom renovations and airside site fueling modifications at 21 active gates, replacing the terminal’s sewer system, new concession spaces and a new outbound bag room. As the prime architect and engineer, ArchTam served as the designer and architect of record, provided project management, interior design, airside planning, civil engineering, security engineering and construction administration services.

Communication. Airports encompass a vast community of people who are impacted by and will have an impact on potential changes. Early stakeholder engagement at the outset of a project — whether through formal or informal meetings — is particularly important. It is the first step in making the airport community aware of upcoming change and creating opportunities for input at a point where changes can be easily implemented. It also sets the stage for regular, structured communication throughout the project ensuring that all are informed and able to act on upcoming changes.

On the Terminal B project, we developed a stakeholder engagement plan around upcoming terminal gate number changes through a sequence of closures and eventual “overnight” change. Addressing the timing, frequency and contact type for each impacted stakeholder, the plan informed all involved of operational changes. This enabled issues to be identified and managed well in advance and the gate renumbering to come off without a hitch. 

Phasing. Maintaining airport operations throughout construction is a paramount concern. We use phasing to accomplish this. While a contractor partner is key to validating and implementing construction phasing, designers can also help facilitate project phasing.

The Terminal B project improved existing gate configuration and capacity by upgauging each aircraft parking position forcing associated aircraft fueling line and pit relocations, new apron paving and new aircraft parking positions. And, importantly, we improved passenger comfort by adding new furniture and finishes to all departure lounges.

To accomplish this work while maintaining airline operations, we used a flexible, phased coordination plan that choreographed the interior renovation and exterior modifications to happen simultaneously. The alignment of the schedule between this interior and exterior work on a gate-by-gate basis enabled the team to maximize usable gates for the airlines throughout construction.

Passenger Experience. Enhancing the passenger experience is a priority for a completed terminal improvement project. Ensuring positive passenger experiences during the extended airport construction time is also important. After all, a happy passenger is more willing to spend time — and money — in an airport terminal.

Elevating the passenger experience during construction is challenging, but practical cost-effective measures such as minimizing hard turns, maximizing visibility to the next destination, and making wayfinding elements consistent with the rest of the airport can go a long way to making this a reality.

At Terminal B, close coordination between our designers, the contractor, and terminal managers enabled the project team to focus on passenger wayfinding. We deployed continuous, phased wayfinding graphics communicating upcoming gate closures and gate numbering changes to passengers that enabled them to easily move to their destinations despite the terminal’s everchanging construction landscape. With air travel expected to more than double over the next two decades and the potential for new investment in airport construction, maintaining continuous operations while prioritizing and elevating passenger comfort and convenience will become even more important across the aviation industry. Terminal B exemplifies continuous operation done right and will provide passengers and airlines the services they need for decades to come.

The post Continuous operations: Designing to keep people flying during airport terminal construction appeared first on Blog.

In our experience, we see some key principles that are instrumental to a successful project. We recommend setting goals and enabling your team to:

• Develop a flexible yet functional, right size for your design
• Apply technology to minimize changes
• Go slow to go fast — be deliberate in your design and construction

Below we discuss these ideas in more detail and how they can help owners deliver a terminal that benefits the airport, airlines and perhaps most importantly, your passengers.

Create a strong vision. Having a strong vision and functional organization from the beginning helps owners, users, contractors and stakeholders maintain focus and consensus over the project’s life. With this, we mean that at the outset of the design processes, the design team, client and stakeholders come to a broad agreement of the elements the team and project must accomplish to be successful. We call them Conditions of Satisfaction (CoS). If you can achieve this, everyone wins.

As the design proceeds, passenger forecasts, facility requirements, budget, schedule and overall configuration are followed by detailed design development, and finally the challenges of project delivery and making the design real. As a result of this information, the established conditions of satisfaction often change. Projects that are designed with an affordable, right-sized and flexible vision in mind will enable the team to pivot and absorb these changes to realize success.

Right size your project and keep it as lean as possible. Bear in mind that market conditions and evolving parameters can change everything, so make sure that your terminal design is elastic and ready to respond to change. From the outset, the team must set up a functional and operational program with a terminal configuration that meets project requirements and can easily and cost-effectively absorb refinements. The design must meet and balance program requirements with cost and schedule parameters. Doing so will ensure that there are fewer parts to manipulate, enabling the team to focus on what really matters — controlling the design quality, budget and schedule.

Build the terminal virtually, then make it real. Architects and engineers now have mature software tools enabling them to virtually build projects before breaking ground in real life. At ArchTam, our designers are skilled at using advanced design tools and robust technology that are focused on interdisciplinary integration and coordination of building systems, structural components and the architectural envelope. Using virtual design and construction (VDC) allows us to build the terminal ahead of time of time and display an incredible amount of detail as the design evolves. As a result, the team can assemble the parts in advance of actual construction and minimize costly change orders during construction. In short, build the terminal before you build it.

Go slow to go fast. This may sound contradictory, but being deliberate will enable you to design the terminal once and get it right the first time. Don’t rush. Too often, schedule demands push teams to work too quickly, which can result in unnecessary re-designs and costly changes. Bring the construction team onto the project as early as possible and integrate them into the design process. Take advantage of their talent and practical input through design-assist. Assemble a design and construction team that have proven that they can and will work well together. You want one team that is all in and in it for each other. These professionals can help refine terminal design, improve cost effectiveness and ease construction. It’s all about your mission. Calibrate your team to work harmoniously and get everyone pulling the rope in the same direction.

Getting it right: Massport and the Terminal E Modernization Project. Logan Airport’s Terminal E Modernization project in Boston is a good example of using these principles to gain success on a large complex terminal design project. Executed in several phases over more than a decade, the Massachusetts Port Authority (Massport) had the vision and determination to get the project done right while remaining flexible. For example, during preliminary design, the terminal was over the established budget. The design and construction team targeted the values for each program element, right sized each functional element and reduced the terminal square footage by nearly 40 percent — without sacrificing terminal operations or passenger experience.

Massport’s vision for Terminal E was conceived as a modern, iconic international passenger terminal with an emphasis on enhanced passenger experience and operational flexibility. Massport led the team which included ArchTam as Architect of Record and vision architect luis vidal + architects, on the right path, always providing leadership and focusing on a balance of budget, function, terminal operations and schedule. ArchTam has enjoyed a more than 25-year partnership with Massport serving as its architect for most of their major terminal projects over those years.

As a key element of Massport’s Logan Forward initiative, Phase 1 of the Terminal E Modernization Project, now complete, is proof that selecting the right team, paying attention to the needs of the airport and the airlines, driving the project team to maintain budget and schedule — all while remaining flexible and absorbing change — can be accomplished if you establish a strong vision and create a team that knows how to get it done.

The post Airport Terminal Designs for the Future: Build in Design Flexibility and be Prepared to Pivot appeared first on Blog.