I have a few pet peeves that I look for in airport design. Most are small and could be fixed, no matter what a terminal's overall design is.
• Horizontal windows. Seeing these at an airport makes me ill. I don't care how grand the underlying design concept is. Nothing stamps on the human spirit more thoroughly than horizontal windows. I think it goes back to basic principles. We are a vertical people. We stand up. For hundreds of years, windows have been vertical, not horizontal. Why now the fetish for low, coffin-like panes of glass separated by thick metal enclosures? In one stroke, they turn what might have been upbeat air terminal spaces into glossy depressing prisons. They're not modern. They're ugly. Enough with them. I would ban them.
• Shopping kiosks blocking views of the tarmac. Good airports bring people close to the wonderful craft that carry us through the sky. They don't block them with junk from China.
• Boneheaded security integration. Okay, many terminals had to be retrofitted with security processing areas after 9/11. Sometimes this is done well, as in Denver; other times it compromises the original design's lines and effectiveness. You can tell when someone just came in and set up things to maximize security, with no attention to the airport experience. It's a sad trend.
• Revenue-grubbing over design. When an airline or airport tries to wring money out of a terminal by plastering advertising on every available surface, it's bad. Example: The wonderful airy open vistas of United's Terminal One in Chicago are being blocked by large banners hung from the ceiling; the carefully wrought color scheme is being ruined by garish video-screen billboards; other billboards are now blocking the large class escalator enclosures, and even the handrails of the escalators themselves sport ad messages and logos. Stop!
• Gate details. The waiting area for passengers should not be a version of purgatory. Passengers should not be bombarded by overly loud televisions, and should have clear views of the planes (and ideally, the runways and taxiway).
• Extortionate prices. Nothing spoils the magic faster that seeing ordinary consumer goods marked up to absurd levels by airport concession operators. You should NOT have to pay more than double the price for an item just because you're behind a security barrier and in effect a captive audience. I don't care what airport managers say, there's NO excuse for this and it should be stopped. The same chains and stores everywhere. What's the point of travelling?
There! Just fix a few things, and most airline terminals would be much better off. Me, I'm fond of what film director John Waters once wrote: “It's hard to be unhappy when you're at an airport, because at least something is happening in your life.”
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