Sanjay Gangal Sanjay Gangal is the President of IBSystems, the parent company of AECCafe.com, MCADCafe, EDACafe.Com, GISCafe.Com, and ShareCG.Com.
San Francisco International Airport, Terminal 3 Boarding Area E in California by Gensler
January 22nd, 2017 by Sanjay Gangal
Article source: Gensler
Gensler’s design for San Francisco International Airport’s renovated Terminal 3 Boarding Area E (T3BAE) will showcase innovative design, interactive technology and a healthy environment carefully tuned to offer travelers a place where they will enjoy spending time. The 65,000-square-foot renovation features progressive sustainability measures that promote wellbeing, and is targeting LEED-Gold certification. A raised “Flight Deck” interactive experience will serve as an exciting physical point of entry to Boarding Area E, which will include 10 gates serving United Airlines. The project was built in a design-build partnership between Hensel Phelps and Gensler for San Francisco International Airport.
Highlighting service, hospitality and comfort, T3BAE’s design offers travelers many choices for how they would like to enjoy their time in the airport. Passengers can view the exquisite art, change clothes in private dressing rooms, stretch out in the Yoga Room, or let their children unwind in an interactive play area.
Neighborhood atmosphere To create an experience comparable to strolling through one of San Francisco’s many vibrant neighborhoods, Gensler designers distributed four restaurants and eight stores throughout the space. Whether they are dining, shopping or enjoying an art installation, passengers are able to keep an eye on their gates as they relax and unwind.
Like a park within a neighborhood, a children’s play area is strategically tucked between local restaurants such as Klein’s Deli and Mission Bar & Grill—affording parents the opportunity to keep an eye on their children while grabbing a bite to eat or enjoying a cocktail. A focal point within the play area is Eric Staller’s mesmerizing installation, which features 5’ diameter moving circles in the floor and wall as well as colorchanging lights that create a mood-altering affect.
Pop-up shops. In order to celebrate local merchants, SFO has built two pop-up shops for T3BAE. These spaces, designed by Gensler and implemented by SFO, greatly reduce the capital and start-up costs required by merchants who would not typically consider locations in an airport. With leases that run approximately six months to a year, the pop-up shops are a great way to bring more local retail into the airport. The first pop-up shops at T3BAE will be McEvoy Olive Oil (San Francisco and Petaluma) and Collector (Berkeley).
Gate lounges like living rooms With lounge furniture, ambient floor lighting, ample electrical outlets and free wifi throughout, boarding areas take on the ambience of a living room where passengers are able to keep an eye on their gates as they relax and unwind. During the day, natural light infuses the space, and lighting that aligns with circadian rhythms keeps passengers feeling their best.
Wait Time T3BAE will provide state-of-the-art technologies that facilitate travel, including new Wait Time security checkpoint technology that gives customers real-time information about security wait times.
Flight Deck Developed in partnership with Razorfish, the Flight Deck will visibly mark the entry to the boarding area. It is composed of three distinct but connected digital experiences, with content that encompasses the entire airport and extends its reach into the City of San Francisco and global destinations. It will enhance the passenger experience by captivating, engaging and connecting with the traveler. Touch screens are at the heart of the experience. This is where travelers will engage, collaborate and discover the breadth of content that the Flight Deck has to offer.
Always on Laptop plug-in stations, elevated work counters and free WiFi throughout the terminal make it easy for everyone to connect and charge electronics on the go.
Fostering Health, Wellbeing and a Sustainable Lifestyle
The yoga room incorporates a soothing color palette, with a dramatic floor-to-ceiling fissure on the feature wall that’s internally illuminated, bringing a Zen quality to the space.
Natural light A series of identical, unitized skylights are arrayed across the roof in a dynamic pattern. This strategy offers the airport a high degree of control over natural light as it enters the space, and contributes to the project’s goal of achieving LEED Gold certification.
Circadian lighting The holdrooms will feature circadian adaptive lighting, which promotes health in the inhabitants of a space by simulating natural light, thus helping to maintain a natural sleep/wake cycle. Morning and daytime light will fall within the blue spectrum, while evening light will fall within the red spectrum. The benefits of circadian adaptive lighting are even greater in an airport, because air travel can disrupt natural sleep schedules.
Waste reduction Building on the success of SFO’s ongoing waste reduction program, T3BAE will go a step further and offer liquid waste stations, to reduce the weight of refuse that must be removed from the terminal.
Additional sustainable building components include: photovoltaic energy that provides onsite, renewable energy; displacement ventilation, which improves air quality while using 20% less energy than typical HVAC systems); recycling and management of demolition and construction waste; and sustainable building materials such as terrazzo flooring with recycled glass chips, recycled-content carpet and wood certified by the Forest Stewardship Council.
Architecturally, the project seeks to communicate a clean, modern, and efficient traveler experience. The design employs a range of expressive architectural elements to frame views to the airfield and sky. Designers also sculpted and controlled daylight in a variety of ways, creating spaces which change in character throughout the day and year.
The design team used topography as the inspiration for both the spatial layout and the textural nature of the space. Retail and dining dot the landscape as a series of visual and physical destinations while uninterrupted terminal views give passengers a sense of control over their environment—mitigating travel related stress and resulting in a more fluid, relaxing and enjoyable experience.
With tapered edges overhanging clerestory glazing, the roof is structured with lightweight, long-span trusses concealed within a finished architectural ceiling. This approach allowed designers to remove the existing middle two rows of structural columns, creating an open and flexible plan.
SFO (www.flysfo.com) provides nonstop service to more than 65 US cities on 21 domestic airlines and to 32 international points on 27 international carriers. SFO offers twice as many non-stop flights to the New York area than all other Bay Area airports combined – making SFO the Bay Area’s Airport of Choice. SFO was voted “North America’s Best Airport” in 2008 by passengers for its outstanding customer service and amenities.
Gensler is a global design firm, with 44 offices and 3,800 employees worldwide. Gensler helps clients succeed by focusing on the needs of the people they serve, whether they are employees, customers, sports fans, students, passengers or guests. Founded in 1965, Gensler has deep expertise in design and architecture across 20 practices, including aviation, retail, planning and urban design, entertainment and hospitality. The firm also holds practices focusing on brand strategy, environmental graphic design, and has recently invested in consulting for sustainable design. Gensler’s recent projects of note include Shanghai Tower, Wilkes Bashford, JetBlue T5 at JFK International Airport, Houston Ballet Center for Dance, Facebook’s global headquarters, Shenbei Arena, and Duke University’s Kunshan Campus in China.
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