Shanghai Pudong’s planned South Satellite Concourse to elevate the passenger experience

Airports are working hard to set themselves apart from their competitors, and nowhere is this more evident than in the design of new terminal buildings.
In an effort to bring business and tourism into their communities, airports often seek iconic structures to draw international notoriety, and so significant focus is placed on dynamic roof forms and structural expressions. However, while these may be the most obvious aspects of terminal design, they do not always directly address the most critical needs of the facility.

Indeed, terminal designs focused on large-scale metaphorical expressions may overshadow the smaller, more human aspects, which ultimately are how the users of the facility experience the building.

But things are changing, as an ever-increasing number of airport operators are beginning to realise that creating a good passenger experience is about more than just the process of moving people from kerbside to airplane through a building with an elegant roof form.

Form and function

In today’s travel age, it’s about enhancing the time passengers spend in the airport by providing environments that are enjoyable and alleviate the inherent stress of flying.

After all, airport terminals are complex machines, which facilitate a journey using multiple processes and modes of transportation.

Given the nature of airports, where processes are repeated thousands of times a day by passengers and employees, the careful crafting of the environment and functionality are critical to the long-term success of the facility.

The design must look past the obvious response of dynamic structure and roof, and address the true needs of passengers and operations. Form and function must be intertwined.

An airport’s success is dependent upon the passengers’ ability to navigate a series of decisions and terminal architecture can either simplify the journey or add unnecessary complexity to it.

To operate at peak efficiency, the terminal’s architecture and functionality must be designed together. Architecture needs to be part of the functionality, not divorced from it.

When done properly, the design is then able to elevate the passenger experience to a new level.

Corgan is currently designing the new South Satellite Concourse for Shanghai Pudong International Airport (PVG). This exciting project, to be completed in 2018, will be the world’s largest remote satellite concourse with more than 100 gates.

The design concept is based on the principle of achieving elegance through careful planning and effective design.

To enable the Chinese gateway to achieve its goal of becoming the premier Asia hub, the project must not only create a beautiful and efficient form, which exceeds all operational requirements, but also re-imagine the passenger experience.

This focus on creating a unique experience will result in increased commercial revenues, higher passenger satisfaction ratings, and greater interest in Shanghai as a global destination.

The principles of the design are based on the concepts of Flow Design, Experiential Design and Informative Architecture.

Flow Design

Significant plan exploration determined the most efficient and direct passenger flows, while also acknowledging that each passenger type requires a unique experience and movement through the airport. The solution enhances the journey of the passenger and provides aspects appealing to a variety of passengers.

The efficiency of passenger flow is the foundation of the design concept. The project consists of an H-shaped plan covering more than one square kilometre, served by two separate Automated People Mover (APM) systems.

When passengers arrive in the stations they are faced with a three-way decision as the stations are located at the intersection of three concourses. Because of this geometry and the unusual size of the facility, careful planning of flows, wayfinding and decision points were critical to minimising walking distances.

Experiential Design

The second major component involves Experiential Design. The design of the passenger experience for this project involves a detailed understanding of specific passenger needs in order to facilitate and enhance their journeys.

Passenger types were divided into four profiles to help inform the exploration of passenger flows, processes and architecture. These profiles were developed to identify the needs of each passenger type relative to services, the interior environment, concessions, amenities, wayfinding and physical environment.

By understanding a person’s travel as an experience, the design materialises the details, emotions and expressions that enhance each passenger’s path through the processes of a typical airport, as well as pinpoints the activities encouraging them to become engaged in activities that help pass the time.

Informative Architecture

The third major design effort creates Informative Architecture that works in concert with the flow and experience using every part of the interior environment to support the purpose of the facility.

This begins with the large-scale gestures of roof form and natural light. For PVG, a series of three roof planes were created. Each vertical break in plane is strategically placed to provide an interior edge of light reinforcing the primary directionality of the facility.

This is the primary level of inference from the architecture that the passenger will perceive and serves to create a basic sense of orientation once passengers emerge from the APM station into the main volume.

The secondary informative scale is related to the primary flow of departing and arriving passengers. At this scale, the focus shifts to specific decision points along each of the paths of travel.

Due to the triangular geometry, the decision point planning process was critical to the clarity of the passenger flows. At increasingly smaller scales, other elements such as materials, lighting and graphics continue to convey the concepts above.

This approach, of focusing on the interior experience rather than the exterior form, is an appropriate response for a remote concourse with no landside experience.

With the challenges of geometry, scale and flow, the focus obviously belonged to the interior. With this focused interior approach of effectively combining flow, experience and informative architecture, I believe that Corgan is creating a cohesively conceived and executed passenger experience.

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