Book Review: Airport Urbanism

Air Traffic Control Quarterly

In the early days of flight, there were many problems to solve just to keep aircraft flying, and airports were simply sandy beaches or very much improvised landing strips, basically a flat and possibly not too hard surface. Flying was an adventure and a bet for the few who had enough money and courage to give it a try. As time passed, the flying objects became more and more safe until some thirty years ago, when aviation became a "mass transportation system," and more and more people started enjoying it, either for business or for leisure. Aircraft started to fly in almost "all weather" and airports became more and more complex interfaces between the airborne part of the trip and the surface part. The need to look at the sky as well as to the surrounding region obliged the one-time "landing strip" to grow into a complex airside system, which then included the runway connected through a more or less complicated network of taxiways to the terminal, both for passengers and for freight. Consequently the airside of an airport needed rules to accommodate more and more aircraft from the moment the aircraft touched down until it reached the gate, and from there to the take off area. Contemporarily, with a series of gates, the landside, or terminal, grew to welcome passengers, arriving as well as departing. Terminal segregated areas were dedicated to domestic or to International flights, checking desks, security controls, baggage recovery bays and waiting rooms. These grew together with other services, such as shopping areas, business areas and lounges. So the airport, from a mere landing strip became, in many instances, a huge city with thousands of employees and many thousands of passengers arriving and departing. Its impact on the airborne side of the aviation system is such that congestion at a major airport may cause a significant ripple effect both on the surrounding airports and on the normal flow of traffic in the overall system. Also, on the terminal side, if there are congested areas, such as in the security check, in the baggage delivery system or in the access to the airport, late departures may be introduced, with a consequent loss of take off slots.

_Why an Airport? A typology that has appeared first only a couple of centuries ago has become one of the most important centers of traffic in the past decades. This type of architecture is often neglected by many as it is not a stationary like other buildings. It’s about flows and rapidity, meaning it is highly regulated, and therefore it may seem for one that there is no space for architecture. However, for others, an airport is one of the most current types of architecture as it symbolises the rapid flows of our highly digitized society. It evokes the problems our profession faces today, notably confusion of scale and the return of ornamentation [Picon, 2012]. As our world is becoming more connected through the Internet and advanced infrastructures, the notions of individuality and locality have become blurred, often resulting in peculiar contradictions. These are fully present In airports, for example the duality of private and public in the airspace and control zones, or that an airport can be experienced either from the inside or from far away, a height of a flying airplane. This building is an articulation point between various aspects of our society, that is trying to define a small scale in this big world.

Engineering Earth: The Impacts of Megaengineering …

2020

In previous centuries, major transportation infrastructure has fostered economic and urban development in places where they were established. This was seen with seaports in the 18th century, Railways in the 19th century, and highways in the 20th century. An emergence of a similar pattern is being witnessed this century as airports have evolved from being just transportation hubs, to drivers of business location and commercial development within and outside its boundaries. Traditionally airports have been located in the outskirts of cities where real estate is cheap and is close enough not to be a tedious commute, but far enough from urban centers to mitigate noise pollution. However, the paradigm has shifted and the "Aerotropolis" urban format has emerged. An Aerotropolis is a type of city where an airport is its central node, and its land use, road network, and economy are planned around this airport. Today, speed and accessibility are the new benchmark and airports are a...

Airports are of particular significance for contemporary cities. They are not just places where airplanes take off and land, but also hubs where locality combines with globality. The transport hubs have always played an important role in city development. Harbors, railway stations or major crossroads were the locations of intense contacts, it was here that settlement structures developed. As privileged locations, they attracted investments and became economic growth centres. A similar phenomenon can be observed for airports. As the number of the transported passengers and goods grows, the terminals develop additional functions. Airport-proximate zones are prestigious sites with good traffic connections. Investment accumulation based on the snow-ball effect results in creating new building complexes, called Airport City. Those are sites where the flow of people, goods and capital takes place and which are the focal points of the urbanization processes in the global economy. But can the Airport City be compared to a city as a shopping gallery to a gallery or an industrial park to a park? Can urban space be created there and if so, what type of city is it?

2008

Ongoing financial, environmental and political adjustments, have shifted the role of large international airports. Many airports are expanding from a narrow concentration on operating as transportation centres to becoming economic hubs. By working together, airports and industry sectors can contribute to and facilitate not only economic prosperity, but create social advantage for local and regional areas in new ways.

Transportation Planning and Technology, 2008

Airport Cities: The Evolution, 2008

1 Chapter 1 in Airport Cities: The Evolution (London: Insight Media, 2008) The Evolution of Airport Cities and the Aerotropolis John D. Kasarda ... boundaries. Airport Metamorphosis Airport terminals are fast becoming luxurious shopping malls and artistic and recreational venues. ...