Chicago officials on Thursday will unveil five striking designs for a massive expansion of O’Hare International Airport, many with swooping roofs and some with quirky features like hammocks where travelers could take a nap before flights.
The proposals from top architects for the $8.5 billion expansion, whose centerpiece will be a new global terminal that combines domestic and international flights under one roof, are all sleekly modern. Three would put naturalistic touches — clusters of trees, wood ceilings or patches of grass—inside the terminal.
The plans, which starting Thursday can be viewed online, at O’Hare and downtown at the Chicago Architecture Center, are broad-brush visions that leave unanswered nitty-gritty questions about security gates and other aspects of the passenger experience.
Mayor Rahm Emanuel has said that selecting an architect for the project is a top priority before he leaves office in May, but it’s unclear who will make that decision. As of Wednesday evening, city officials had declined to release the names of the evaluation committee members that will rate the architects’ plans.
In an interview Wednesday, Emanuel said the expansion would combine Chicago’s tradition of excellence in architecture and aviation. Asked about the apparent lack of transparency in the evaluation process, the mayor replied that while he would “have an opinion” about which plan is best, the evaluation committee would do its job.
“We’re gonna keep this aboveboard,” he said.
Scheduled to open in 2028 and to be financed by airline ticket fees, the expansion will be the largest and most expensive terminal revamp in O’Hare’s 74-year history. It seeks to transform an airport with a notorious reputation for gridlock, packed concourses and air-traffic delays.
The project also aims to help O’Hare catch up to other U.S. airports, like Atlanta’s Hartfield-Jackson International Airport, in the race to modernize facilities and reap the benefits of attracting more passengers and carriers.
“Operationally, O’Hare just isn’t nearly optimal in terms of the way aviation works today. It was designed in a completely different era,” said Seth Kaplan, editor of Airline Weekly, which covers the aviation industry.
The architects vying for the project include such marquee names as Santiago Calatrava, designer of the birdlike 2001 addition to the Milwaukee Art Museum as well as the unbuilt Chicago Spire; Jeanne Gang, best known for her curvy Aqua Tower; and Skidmore, Owings & Merrill, which gave Chicago the Willis and Trump towers.
The idea behind the 2.25 million-square-foot global terminal, which will replace O’Hare Terminal 2, is to make it easier for passengers using terminals 1 and 3, the hubs of United and American airlines, to make connections between domestic and international flights. Most passengers must hop on O’Hare’s people mover to make those connections.
“For the first time ever, you won’t need a Fitbit to make it around O’Hare,” the mayor said, referring to the activity-tracking products used by exercisers.
The expansion, which also will include two new passenger concourses, will increase the airport’s overall square footage to 8.9 million square feet from the current 5.5 million square feet, the mayor’s office said.
Emanuel predicted the increase will keep ticket prices down because more gates will create more competition among airlines operating at O’Hare.
The five proposals, which the Tribune viewed in short videos Wednesday, seek to update the facilities and image of an airport that took shape in the 1960s and once reigned as the world’s busiest, a title now claimed by Atlanta. The designs are conceptual and the city did not release the cost of the individual proposals.
All the designs stress the importance of O’Hare as a gateway to Chicago, with some making oblique references to the airport’s reputation as a human cattle pen.
Fentress-EXP-Brook-Garza Joint Venture Partners
The team of Fentress-EXP-Brook-Garza Joint Venture Partners, headed by the Denver-based architects of the tentlike Denver International Airport, suggests a global terminal with swooping skylit roofs and tall glass walls.
The plan’s visual signature is a curving, upturned roof that would accentuate the terminal’s presence along O’Hare’s approach road. The airy interior would be clean-lined and mostly white, with towering columns.
“Our vision is to return the romance of air travel to all who pass through Chicago’s O’Hare,” the team said in a statement.
Foster Epstein Moreno Joint Venture Partners
Another team, Foster Epstein Moreno Joint Venture Partners, is led by London-based Foster + Partners, which has designed several airports around the world as well as the sleek North Michigan Avenue Apple store.
The team proposes a roof that would cover the global terminal like a glassy blanket, shifting from three arches along the approach road to a single, dramatic arch facing the airfield.
The roof would have a diagonal grid of skylights. This team also seeks to recapture “the romance associated with air travel,” its statement said.
Studio ORD Joint Venture Partners
Studio ORD Joint Venture Partners, headed by Chicago’s Jeanne Gang, calls for a sculpted, three-part terminal that wraps around a towering skylit atrium. The terminal would be “a vibrant neighborhood,” the team said in its statement.
Inspired by the airport’s original name — Orchard Field, which lives on in its ORD designation — the terminal’s interior would include ample greenery and nature-inspired architecture. There would be columns that resemble trees as well as actual trees and even patches of grass in the floor.
The interior also appears to make extensive use of wood in its skylit ceiling.
Skidmore, Owings & Merrill
The global terminal from the Chicago office of Skidmore, Owings & Merrill, which is teamed with ARUP, Ross Barney Architects and JGMA, would have an undulating skylit roof, which would overhang the building’s tall glass walls.
Also drawing inspiration from the airport’s rural origins, the design proposes ample outdoor landscaping. The terminal would be “set in a prairie,” a video caption said.
Inside would be glass-enclosed waiting areas filled with trees. One shows a hammock hung from tree trunks. “A place to rest under a tree before boarding,” another caption promised.
Santiago Calatrava
Calatrava’s plan is the most extensive, encompassing not just the global terminal but a business complex with formal gardens that would remake the present site of parking facilities next to the terminals.
The terminal itself is conceived in the shape of an arrowhead or a ship’s prow with a dramatic white roof overhanging the approach road. The terminal’s interior would feature the architect’s trademark white-on-white skeletal look, with wide skylights set in an undulating ceiling.
Calatrava’s statement terms the design “a masterwork of modern terminal architecture,” though it does not say how much the business complex would add to the project’s cost.
The architect has drawn sharp criticism for cost overruns at projects like the $4 billion transportation complex of the World Trade Center in lower Manhattan.
Evaluating the designs
Three-dimensional models of the plans will be displayed at the Chicago Architecture Center, 111 E. Upper Wacker Drive, through Jan. 31. The public can see the models for free, said Dan O’Connell, a spokesman for the center.
The designs also can be viewed at O’Hare’s Terminal 2 through the end of the month and at www.VoteORD21.com. An online survey will allow the public to give feedback about the plans through Jan. 23.
In the 1988 architecture competition for the Harold Washington Library Center, the identity of jury members was made public and architects competing for the commission made public presentations to the jury.
This time, however, the city is not identifying members of the evaluation committee and no public presentations are scheduled.
The committee, which was hearing presentations from the architects Wednesday, consists “of a diverse group of members who are stakeholders and subject matter experts,” Lauren Huffman, a Department of Aviation spokeswoman, said in an email.
Kaplan, the Airline Weekly editor, said the needs of the flying public have changed since the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks because passengers now spend most of their time at the airport past security gates. Also, self-service technology has eliminated the need for as much ticket counter space.
“Anyone who has flown through knows there’s no mistaking the fact that it’s old,” Kaplan said of O’Hare.
mwisniewski@chicagotribune.com
Twitter @BlairKamin
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