Airport as Inhabited Architecture

[WHAT]

Airports should be the gateway to an urban center, but they have always been on the periphery, lacking a meaningful connection to the city center. Although the Hong Kong International Airport tried to address this issue, but the recent Skycity Development by the Airport Authority departs from this objective. This thesis aims to question the accepted modes of travel and the current infrastructure that support them, so that the airport could established itself as much more than a mere transitional infrastructure, but more of an inhabited destination in and of itself.

sequence-terminalAirport as transitory infrastructure? (By Chung Kit Kwan)

 

[WHY]

Recently, the Airport Authority has sealed approval to proceed with a 50-year lease at a nominal premium to develop over 10 hectares of the hub’s north commercial district into a large-scale retail and hotel destination, known as Skycity Development.

Although the Hong Kong International Airport is successful in reconnecting the transit experience with a more immediate sense of arrival of the place, as a shopping paradise, the development proposed by the Airport Authority is often hinge on its economic value. In this sense, the airport infrastructure is restricted to the expectation of being economically efficient, suffocating architect’s aspiration for the untapped opportunities lies in this increasingly common travel experience. This recent airport redevelopment provides a tipping point for invigorating more meaningful link for the airport and the city, one that could be perceived as more than a transitory place, but one as a de facto destination. In an ever increasingly connected world, airport could not afford to be complacent in its dragging state as a mere form of instruments of travel: they should not remain as a unidirectional infrastructure, but become a multifunctional environment. Hence, instead of being dictated by the city’s economic agenda, it could be a potential catalyst for reforming the city.

 

news

Hong Kong airport recent Skycity development with retail, dining and entertainment hub, scmp image (assessed 23rd September, 2016)

 

zone

Reimagined airport as inhabited infrastructure. (By Chung Kit Kwan)

 

[Project Intended to Test the Thesis Statement]
The project seeks to reexamine the priorities of airport design by using multiple travel narratives and investigating possible programmatic combinations to stimulate a repositioning of the airport’s primary requirement as solely a facilitator of travel. The thesis emphasizes the exploration and critique of the highly-regarded Hong Kong International Airport and its recent Skycity Development, in the hope that revitalized or newly forged paradigms might address both the dynamic flows and programmatic menu specific to this infrastructure. The thesis aims to question today’s accepted airport paradigm and set a goal of seeking out and testing other narratives that inspire meaningful and provocative programmatic affiliations. The goal is to capitalize on the recent redevelopment plan of the airport to subvert the regarded singular mode of development in Hong Kong.

[HOW]

One way is to investigate the potential of airport as a global destination used by global citizen, establishing the airport as a destination existing between national jurisdictions. This thesis proposes a new airport typology by doubling the program: an inhabited office, offering a secure, neutral diplomatic facility for meeting and exchange with any nation, religion, or organization.

With the advantage of having face-to-face contact without demanding large-block of travel time, an alternative typology of the inhabited architecture could leverage the existing security facilities, and delineate a visa-free zone in which customs rules are relaxed or eliminate to facilitate contentious political conferences and lubricate international meetings.

 

[BIBLIOGRAPHY]

Rossi, Aldo, and Peter Eisenman. The Architecture of the City. Rev. for the American ed. Cambridge [u.a.: MIT, 1982.

Fulcher, Merlin, Farrell attacks Foster airport. Architects’ Journal, Oct 13, 2011, Vol.234(11), p.5(1)

Chris van Uffelen, Airport architecture. Salenstein, Switzerland : Braun 2012

Allison Arieff.,  Design for aviation. San Francisco, CA : Gensler 2012

Terminal 4: Architecture 00.(Buildings: Airport City Charrette). Architects’ Journal, March 6, 2015, Vol.241(9), p.50(4)

Pattern City: Original Modern.(NORD Architecture)(Buildings: Airport City Charrette). Architects’ Journal, March 6, 2015, Vol.241(9), p.44(4)

The Station Not The Airport.(Rem Koolhaas’s idea of the Generic City). The Architectural Review, June, 2000, Vol.207(1240), p.44
Codrington, Andrea. Wing of desire.(Cathay Pacific’s lounge at Hong Kong’s Chek Lap Kok International Airport). Interiors, March, 1999, Vol.158(3), p.42(7)

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