Hasta La Ideas

Architecture firm Gensler have released a conceptual proposal for a new floating airport for London, located in the Thames Estuary with terminals connected by underwater tunnels.

Unlike previous concepts for a new London airport, including last year’s proposal by Foster + Partners, Gensler’s plans do not involve pouring earth into the river for land reclamation. Instead, “we’re going to float the scheme on giant platforms,” explains Ian Mulcahey, the firm’s global head of planning.

The proposal comes as the UK government looks at ways to increase airport capacity in south-east England. Called London Britannia Airport, it would comprise four floating runways tethered to the seabed and departure concourses leading to underwater rail tunnels, which would connect passengers to central London as well as European rail networks.

Passengers coming by car would travel to three land-based terminals – two located north and south of the estuary and a third proposed between Canary Wharf and the Olympic Park. The proposal also includes plans to transform Heathrow Airport into an eco city providing homes for 300,000 people.

Above image shows sketch for Heathrow Eco City

Talking to Dezeen about the possibility of a third runway at Heathrow, Mulcahey said that would “only be a sticking plaster.” Instead of wasting time on a short-term solution, he thinks it would be better to start again properly: “The scheme totally rethinks how the airport of the future will operate.”

See more stories about airports here.

Here’s some more information from Gensler:

Global design firm Gensler reveals its concept for a new London aviation hub. London Britannia Airport (LBA) would position the capital as the global gateway for Europe in what would be the world’s most innovative infrastructure development this century, while reducing environmental impact, cost and disruption to London.

Providing a further endorsement to the Thames Estuary as the preferred location for London’s new airport, Gensler have designed a unique solution creating an entirely new approach to modern airport design and construction with a clear focus on convenience and accessibility.

The proposals also envisage a new future for Heathrow as the largest urban expansion project in Europe with the development of an eco city – Heathrow Gardens – on the former airfield that can utilise the existing infrastructure to provide additional homes for 300,000 people and employment for over 200,000.

Chris Johnson, Gensler managing principal and the creative director for the airport said: “This is a once in a century project that will build on the capital’s reputation for innovation and creativity and provide a new symbol of national pride. This is a fantastic opportunity to rethink the problems created by a redundant 20th century airport model and provide a genuine 21st century airport that creates a new standard for the world, minimising nuisance and maximising environmental benefits.”

Ian Mulcahey, Project Director: “This will be a ‘national’ infrastructure project that can inject new pace and dynamism into our economy. The airport can be quickly manufactured in the ship yards and steel works across the UK and can be floated by sea and positioned in the Estuary. This isn’t a London Airport, it is a Global Airport, designed, manufactured and built in the UK.”

Environmental Benefits

The relocation of a UK hub airport to the Thames Estuary will provide a state of the art facility that will transform the quality of life for millions of Londoners and will provide London with the space and infrastructure to grow and thrive over the next century. The marine location not only minimises noise disruption to existing communities whilst enabling 24 hour passenger arrival and departure, but it also avoids any demolition of homes.

Building upon the UK’s capability as a world leader in marine construction, London Britannia Airport includes four five-kilometre floating runways. To minimise environmental disruption the runways are tethered to the sea bed and to the final departure concourse which provides access to the marine rail tunnels that connect directly to central London and the European High Speed Rail Networks.

The design’s inherent flexibility creates a platform whereby runways can be floated in as required and taken away for maintenance in the future. The concept allows for future expansion to accommodate 6 runways when required.

By floating the runway and its associated hard standing it is possible to avoid the negative effects of land reclamation in the sensitive estuarine waters of the Thames. The location of the airport can then be optimised to avoid the key feeding and migration areas between high and low water.

London Britannia will have a sustainable access strategy with unparalleled accessibility to the UK and Europe through a combination of rail, ferry and jetfoil connections. Vehicular access will be dispersed to three new land based Departure/Arrival terminals, two located north and south of the estuary, and a third Central London terminal proposed between Canary Wharf and the Olympic Park.
The airport has also been designed to generate much of its own power from marine turbines situated within, and adjacent to the floating runways.

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Frank Lloyd Wright (1867-1959) was not enamored with New York City, a place he felt was overrun with both people (some distinguished) and buildings (most undistinguished). Sure, he took on the task of designing a building to house Solomon R. Guggenheim’s nascent Museum of Non-Objective Painting, but Wright was less than thrilled with the client’s preferred location. “I can think of several more desirable places in the world to build his great museum,” Wright wrote in a letter to architect Arthur Holden, “but we will have to try New York.” The Frank Lloyd Wright Foundation has apparently come to a similar conclusion, having decided that the architect’s vast archive will soon have a permanent home at Columbia University and the Museum of Modern Art.

The freshly inked joint acquisition and stewardship agreement calls for Wright’s complete physical archives—some 23,000 architectural drawings and 44,000 historical photographs along with large-scale presentation models, manuscripts, correspondence, and other documents—will be permanently transferred to the collections of Columbia and MoMA, with the foundation retaining all copyright and intellectual property responsibility. Columbia’s Avery Architectural & Fine Arts Library will take all of the paper-based materials, while MoMA will house all three-dimensional works, including some of the architectural models made for Wright’s 1940 exhibition at the museum. The joint acquisition is expected to spur the creation of Wright-related publications, exhibitions, public programs, and videos. Oh look, here’s one now:

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La société américaine IBM nous propose de découvrir leurs nouveaux locaux situés à Rome en Italie. Ces derniers ont été rénovés et proposent un environnement futuriste très réussi par le designer Massimo Iosa Ghini. Des locaux à l’architecture très bien pensée à découvrir dans la suite de l’article.

Danish architects BIG and Tegnestuen Nuuk present ideas for a combined airfield and shipping port in Greenland at the Danish Pavilion during the Venice Architecture Biennale 2012.

The AIR+PORT proposals form one strand of the exhibition Possible Greenland, which addresses the future development of Greenland’s infrastructure as new shipping routes and oil drilling bring increased attention to the country.

The cross-shaped airport and shipping harbour would be located on an island just outside capital city Nuuk and would facilitate domestic and international flights, as well as supporting trade routes.

“Greenlanders today are purely dependent on air traffic for domestic commutes but almost crippled by empty flights and staggering prices,” explains BIG founder Bjarke Ingels. ”The new Air+Port will become a transit hub between Europe and America, increasing potential transit tourism and cutting costs for the local commuters.”

Also presented at the exhibition are a masterplan addressing immigration policies, plans to help cultivate resources and ideas for new housing typologies that respect the country’s history and identity.

Other recent projects by BIG include a cultural centre for Bordeaux and a skyscraper shaped like a hash symbol.

Above: installation at the Danish Pavilion

See all our stories about BIG »
See all our coverage of the Venice Architecture Biennale »

Here’s a little more information from BIG:

BIG in collaboration with TENU, Julie Hardenberg and Inuk Silas Høgh present Connecting Greenland: AIR+PORT as a part of the exhibition “POSSIBLE GREENLAND” at the Danish Pavilion, exploring the potentials and challenges that Greenland is facing as the country gains global attention.

Greenland’s political agenda is currently dominated by the global interest in its natural resources suggesting an international accessible airport in Nuuk and the upgrading of the capital’s industrial harbor. The current inefficient domestic aviation system together with the eruption of resources and impacts of climate change place Greenland uniquely in the center of the future maritime world map. Greenland Transport Commission identified the island of Angisunnguaq, south of Nuuk as a potential new epicenter for connecting Greenland.

“Greenland has the potential to reposition itself from the periphery to the center of the major world economies of Europe, Asia and America. Greenlanders today are purely dependent on air traffic for domestic commutes but almost crippled by empty flights and staggering prices. The new Air+Port will become a transit hub between Europe and America – increasing potential transit tourism and cutting costs for the local commuters. By overlapping the water and airways in the Air+Port we seek to resolve a domestic challenge with a global investment. A piece of global infrastructure with a positive social side effect – Social Infrastructure.” Bjarke Ingels, Founding Partner, BIG.

Rather than seeing these major infrastructural developments as two separate investments, BIG envisions a symbiotic relationship between the two transportation systems air + port. Instead of creating a new mono programmatic piece of public infrastructure the project explores the potential mix of programmatic molecules creating a new DNA for efficient transportation and vibrant public programs benefitting not only Nuuk, but the country as a whole.

The post AIR+PORT by BIG and Tegnestuen Nuuk
at the Danish Pavilion appeared first on Dezeen.

Let’s say you controlled an enormous collection of significant design artifacts, located in a relatively remote region. Would you decide to a) keep them there, hoping design-lovers would make the pilgrimage and perhaps enrich the surrounding community, or b) move the collection to a major urban center (which already has more than its fair share of foot traffic) in a guarantee of more eyeballs?

That was the question faced by the Frank Lloyd Wright Foundation, which has 23,000 drawings, 44,000 photographs, and literally hundreds of thousands of ancillary materials from the iconic architect, all squirreled away at former FLW headquarters in both Wisconsin and Arizona. They’ve chosen option b); it has just been announced that they’ve struck a three-way deal with the MoMA and Columbia University’s Avery Architectural & Fine Arts Library to move the massive collection to New York City.

So why did they do it? All parties involved sound off in this video below, released just this morning.

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