Airports On-hold. Towards Resilient Infrastructures

What do huge flocks of sheep, hundreds of rabbits, business parks, metropolitan parks, leisure parks, high-tech parks have in common with airports? These are the most frequent visitors to airports recently constructed. These are the new ways of inhabiting an airport and connecting it to its context. The book presents the transformation of obsolete airfields as new productive landscapes. It explores the challenges for the conversion of abandoned, decommissioned and on-hold airports thought the exploration of their life cycles. By exploring the transitory condition, defined as “on-hold,” the book discovers strategies for the transformation of obsolete airfields. AIRPORTS ON-HOLD TOWARDS RESILIENT INFRASTRUCTURES CONTENTS 7 PREFACE | BOARDING 80 3. PLANNING OBSOLESCENCE Tendencies 8 84 3.1 Technology 87 3.2 Landscape FOREWORD | An Interview with Charles Waldheim 14 INTRODUCTION | TAKE OFF 91 3.3 Recycle 22 25 1. A VIEW FROM ABOVE 1.1 Demystifying Infrastructural Myths 102 4. RESILIENT LANDSCAPE RESERVES Peripheral territories The infrastructures and the crisis 105 4.1 Airport Second Life 107 4.2 Devices for Airports On-hold: 4 tools Infrastructure Recycle beyond Urban Transformation Resilient Infrastructure towards Adaptive Landscapes 110 4.3 Experimentations: 3 cases 1.3 From Glamour to Low-Cost Experience 138 5. POSITIONS 32 38 A place to live instead of a place to leave! 1.2 La RE- Époque Signiicance in the European framework International Research Platforms Dis-comfort 48 50 2. AIRPORT ON-HOLD 2.1 Airport, City and Territory 150 Conversations with 176 AFTERWORD | An Interview with Mosè Ricci 184 BIBLIOGRAPHY Big hub, regional, low-cost, on-hold airports 60 2.2 Airport Life Cycle Alberto Ferlenga Laura Cipriani Francesc Muñoz Christian Salewski Sonja Dümpelmann On-hold state 68 2.3 Mapping Airports On-hold European contexts: Italy and Spain 4 | CONTENTS CONTENTS | 5 PREFACE On the way to Lleida-Alguaire Airport October 2011 In this remote part of inland Catalonia, I see around me vast stretches of cropland, small villages and locks of sheep. With me are thirty young, curious architects - certainly not local - that roam fascinated by the vastness of this space. They have reached this place as I did, coming from different parts of Spain and utilizing various means. Getting closer, I enter into the main building. It could be a conference room, but catering has already organized a service so perfect that it could pass as a restaurant: I can imagine oicial lunches or even parties organized here, or perhaps a wedding. Actually, with its high tower, soaring towards ininity, amid the immensity of the surrounding ields, it seems like a church: a cathedral in the desert. Suddenly, I see a huge dark-grey mark in the landscape. And the sound of a single-engine airplane, humming overhead, reorders my thoughts: I’m in an airport. After three days I see the irst airplane landing. But everything began few days before... It’s 6.10 in the morning and I’m already in a long queue at Gate D11. An animated trip is waiting for me. My compact and reliable trolley pulled by one hand, the ID document and the boarding pass—printed the day beforeready to be exhibited in the other hand, have allowed me to quickly pass the procedures for the security control. Despite it being very early in the morning and placed well ahead in the process, I ind myself in a queue with hundreds of combative people, ready to run and to lay claim to a seat between row 03 - because the irst three rows are always reserved for business class - and row 16, preferably the large seat next to the emergency exit—even if it’s always only assigned to the appropriate people—and to guarantee the right to store their own luggage in the space above (and below) their seats. Finally, I ind a seat and, shortly after, the plane takes off. The light is very short, only an hour and forty minutes accompanied by the sequence of: crew welcoming, explanation of the emergency regulations, captain’s greeting, control of tables, window covers, and belts position for takeoff, description of food, snacks and drinks, garbage removal, duty free purchase options of cigarettes, perfumes, toys, scratch-cards, shuttlebus tickets and... “Gracias por viajar con nosotros, estamos llegando a en el Aeropuerto El Prat. Bienvenidos en Barcelona.” After the light, there are only a couple of hours to wait for a local bus followed by another two hours to reach Lleida (in Catalan) or Lerida (in Castilian). Then, I hail a taxi and in half an hour I reach my destination: the Lleida-Alguaire Airport. I have one question that keeps coming to mind: why not land directly at this airport? 6 | PREFACE PREFACE | 7 I’ve long suspected that people are only truly happy and aware of a real purpose to their lives when they hand over their tickets at the check-in. J. G. Ballard, Airports: The Cities of the Future, 1997 INTRODUCTION Schipol Airport Amsterdam | The Netherlands Photo by Sara Favargiotti | 2014 TAKE OFF TAKE OFF Field of research Since the late 1990s, the development of physical infrastructure networks immediately accelerated the changes of urban structure, thus changing landscape, city and territorial interpretations. The history of modern infrastructures coincides with the need to respond quickly to the necessity of connecting different places and territories within countries inluenced by a complex geography, and to remove them from physical isolation and marginalization.[1] This has generated one of the main myths of the last century, that infrastructures bring development. According to this idea, cities competed with each other through major airports and major stations. The role of architecture for large infrastructure was to build the image of urban competitiveness. The effects of these processes on urban and territorial development have been enormous. They have lead to an overestimation and overproduction of airports across the European and North American territories, often becoming burdens on local communities and economies. This has signiicantly compromised the inancial stability of several cities and regions particularly in Europe. During the height of the construction boom, authorities rushed to take advantage of opportunities to plan new airports. Many of the newest regional and secondary airports did not see a single passenger through their terminals. Empty waiting rooms, check-in areas with more employees than passengers and ire-ighters waiting for planes that never arrive are a few of the elements that characterize their landscape. In many cases, political motivations and economic interests guided the investment decisions, rather than real need. These underused and speculative airports are all examples of the waste of public money on mega-infrastructure that covers the European landscape. This book is built on these assumptions, noting that at the beginning of 21st Century, the infrastructural myth is no longer valid. The global economic crisis has had a profound effect on local and regional communities, accelerating globalization and at the same time, increasing vulnerability to external shocks. The crisis, however, offers the opportunity for a transition to eicient structures and to a more sustainable development of economic resources, land use and energy eiciency. ”ery often, economic decline foresees urban regeneration. In this framework, the airport infrastructure becomes one of the main topics: focusing landscape-urban-infrastructure-related issues in a context of development is different from doing it in a state of constant slowdown or in deadlock. “Cathedrals in the desert, ghost airports, white elephants” are just few of the name used to define all those airports that have been recently built and never or partially used. It is evident that the risk of closure is very high for the majority of these structures. Airports are the epitome of the widespread obsolete infrastructural condition in Europe as well as all in North America. In fact, the analysis of their regions shows how territories became filled with obsolete, decommissioned and abandoned airields that never reached their full potential 16 | TAKE OFF or lost their central role. They have completely or partially lost their function and brought about negative consequences for their surrounding contexts, becoming structures that have higher maintenance costs than beneits for their territories. What are the possible futures for these recently produced infrastructures that are already in decline? The process for the closure and the consequential transformation of an underutilized airfield in not obvious, and it might take several years before choosing to deinitely deactivate an airport. ”ery often, in fact, airport owners don’t see the option of demolishing the infrastructure as the most convenient alternative. Some destinies may be opened and can generate unexpected uses and, in the meanwhile, airports can be kept as reserves with gradual transformations. This phase is a transitional condition in which airports are holding possible patterns that might potentially activate a new life cycle. For airports on-hold, the cycle is not over yet, but it is rather a phase of transition to realign the cyclical nature of airfields by diversifying the operations and preparing the ield for a future transformation. In that sense, it is not uncommon that an underutilize airport remains in a limbo for some time, valuating possible alternatives scenarios. The book explores this transitory condition, deined as on-hold, as challenge for the transformation of obsolete airfields. On-hold refers to a phase of transition, implying an embryo of activation, an embryo of life that can be activated or re-activated. The renewal of on-hold infrastructures can become a significant landscape and architectural “figure” in contemporary contexts, improving the quality of urban environments. If infrastructure does not bring about development, dealing with the life cycles of existing infrastructures can improve the settlement context, from an architectural and urban design point of view. Rethinking urban infrastructure, architecture and landscape, is seen as an opportunity to create new relationships between the city, the environment, landscape and ecology.[2] Airports On-hold. Towards Resilient Infrastructures aims to update the investigation of the relation between small and medium airports and the landscape in speciic areas, outlining several strategies for the conversion of on-hold airports. A sensitive evaluation of the sustainability of the interventions for landscapes, cities and territories is necessary so that the onhold airports do not become problematic black holes, but rather, they enhance the potentialities of the airields itself as a catalytic agent and a generator of new productive landscapes. Hypothesis What do huge locks of sheep, hundreds of rabbits, business parks, metropolitan parks, leisure parks, high-tech parks have in common with airports? These are the most frequent visitors to airports recently constructed. These are the new ways of inhabiting an airport and connecting it to its context. In fact, having so many airport infrastructures has caused a premature obsolescence of many of them. Many airports were abandoned becoming a problem for cities in terms of space and cost. This creates among other consequences many brownields. The dilemma is urgent. However, airports are challenging case studies because TAKE OFF | 17 they are very diicult to try to put back into the old structure of the city. The combination of centrality, emptiness, environmental contamination and economic capability makes a good case for study from a landscape perspective. How should our disciplines deal with these complex landscape and urban elements? How can a new landscape and urban design approach rethink and recalibrate obsolete airields through ecological, social and cultural valuations? Many abandoned airports have already been redeveloped as a new part of the city. Orange County Great Park (Irvine, California), Crissy Field (San Francisco), Maurice Rose Airield (Frankfurt, Germany), Tempelhofer Park (Berlin, Germany) are few of the numerous projects that show the reconversion of an existing airield into an new part of the city: a re-naturalized park providing new economic and social activities. Generally, the growing population, the high demand for new dwellings or their physically centrality in the city simplify their reconversion in new urban developments, natural parks or productive ields. Even the proliferation of low-cost companies started to promote the revitalization of secondary airports. However, what happens when the airport destiny is not yet clear or when the resources are not suicient to generate similar processes? The current forms of policy development and land management are showing their limitations and the necessity that architectural, urban and landscape projects deal with on-hold airport infrastructures, generating new life cycles. To view the airport as something that can be reloaded means to consider its rhythms, its life cycle, and its metamorphoses.[3] Contrary to recycled airports, for airports on-hold the life cycle is not yet inished. It refers to a phase of transition or a changing condition. This condition allows a potential combination of functions and could also open up the possibility of a return to aviation as a future step. In that sense, the indeterminate state of these airports could be transformed into an opportunity. The book aims to offers the documented registration of this phenomenon in progress. Some destinies may be opened, and sometimes the onhold state generates unexpected uses. Therefore, questioning the nature of airport infrastructure becomes a key consideration in the approach to this research topic. The book explores how airport infrastructure can function as catalytic agents and activators of contexts owing to their dimension and relationship with the territory. This interpretation of the airport landscape allows us to understand the crucial step that many small and medium airports are currently facing: they conceive the airport not only as transport infrastructure but also as a key element for the development of territories according to new paradigms. Objectives and structure Airports On-hold presents the transformation of obsolete airfields as new productive landscapes. It explores the challenges for the conversion of abandoned, decommissioned and on-hold airports thought the exploration of their life cycles. The theme of a new life cycle for infrastructure is increasingly central in landscape urbanism and urban design. Many airields will become obsolete, many will serve other functions, and many will begin a new cycle of life generating new trade within cities, landscapes and territories. Therefore the book aims to 18 | TAKE OFF On the way to Lleida-Alguaire Airport Catalonia, Spain | 2011 Photo by Sara Favargiotti transfer the concept of resilience into infrastructures within the landscape design disciplines: the capacity of airields to express new meanings over time, beyond their original function. These interpretations of the airport landscape conceive the airield not only as transport infrastructure but also as natural reserves for city developments or as spaces for landscape reclamation. Accordingly, airields may become new urban resources, improving the quality of urban life and becoming a place to live instead of a place to leave. The work is divided into ive chapters. The irst and the third propose infrastructural and airport topics from a cultural perspective, confronting past and future tendencies. While the second and the fourth chapters are devoted to a deepening of discussions of real contexts and case studies, by proposing devices for the renewal of on-hold airports. The last chapter reports the conversations that I have carried out with researchers (academics and practitioners) involved in the ield of airport landscape in the last ten years between North America and Europe. The irst chapter, A ”iew from Above, discusses the dynamics of building new infrastructures, their impact on urbanization and landscape and the theme TAKE OFF | 19 of urban recycling. A retrospective view presents the relevance of the topic since the Modern Age, comparing different approaches in contemporary societies and landscapes. The second chapter, “Airport On-Hold,” explores the definition of the on-hold condition as an embryo of activation. It is supported by an in-depth investigation into the European context, analyzing and mapping two speciic territories: Italy and Spain. These Mediterranean countries have strongly believed in the myth of infrastructure as carrier of development. Even though the contexts are different, the dynamics have been the same: the excessive over-construction has left two countries full of derelict airport infrastructures. Speciically, this chapter describes the problems and opportunities of on-hold airport infrastructures, from the urban and landscape point of view, through the analysis of the European airports condition. This analysis is supported by and integrated with the exploration of international projects on a global scale, developed in the third chapter Planning Obsolescence. The possibilities for the renewal of newly built airports have been explored to reevaluate their uses, potentialities and performances that add value to the landscape and urban area. Accordingly, it becomes interesting to shift the perspective on obsolete airields from a planned obsolescence to planning for obsolescence. This chapter investigates projects and processes for the transformation of obsolete, abandoned, and underutilized airields. The trend is moving away from the modern attitude of domination and submission of territories, particularly with infrastructure, that characterized previous decades. Contemporary approaches follow an attitude of understanding and balance with the legacy that has been inherited, as atonement for the excesses of the past. Airports are specifically manifesting an earlier obsolescence that brings a complexity of problems not solely related to mobility and transport systems. In this context, it is possible to outline some tendencies that have characterized recent decades and may continue in the future: technology that bring in a personalization of the transports, landscape that reclaim and compensate for what has been destroyed, recycle as paradigm to renew abandoned places looking for new meaning. Chapter four, “Resilient Landscape Reserves,” assesses the relationships and synergies activated with the surrounding contexts through new uses and potentialities hosted by new airport landscapes. It chapter explores how the theme of generating a new life cycle is a particularly signiicant issue for the airport that we have built over the years in exuberant form. The airports can become points of territorial aggregation with multiple functions: environmental, tourism and services. Three European countries (Finland, Greece and Italy) have been investigated as case studies to experiment on their on-hold airports a set of renewal strategies through the activation of airports’ second life. Chapter ive, Positions, reports the conversations carried out between 2013 and 2015 with academic and practitioners involved on landscapes, cities and infrastructures in a broad sense. The connection with other research platforms engaged in the study of airfields in the last ten years supported the creation of an international research network of experts that allows the sharing of cultural experiences and the different research approaches. Travelling from Europe to “nited 20 | TAKE OFF States, I have interviewed some of the most relevant academics and practitioners that have investigated the relationships between landscapes, cities and airports. They contribute to highlight the network of research platforms involved in the topic of airport landscape across different scales and ields of interest. The conversations focus on the past and on-going projects of each platforms that deal with landscape, infrastructures and urban transformations to outline the interpretation of landscape in the contemporary age. [1] Referred to the essay of Pino Scaglione, Osmotic Infrastructure. From Highway to Eco-boulevard . In: Ricci M., New Paradigms, List, Trento, 2012, p. 207. [2] According to Charles Waldheim and Sonja Dümpelmann, although airports have come to occupy pivotal positions in the economy, ecology and geography of the cities they serve, the design disciplines have not given them much attention. In recent years the economic centrality, environmental impacts and cultural relevance of airports have provided landscape architecture with new opportunities. While the modern airport can be read as an engineering project or architectural object, its manifold social, cultural and environmental implications raise a number of signiicant questions for the design disciplines. Source: Waldheim C., Dümpelmann S., (eds.), Airport Landscape. Urban Ecologies in the Aerial Age, Pamphlets, Harvard Graduate School of Design, Cambridge, Massachusetts, 2013. [3] Pierre Bélanger highlights how new urban pressures are requiring a thorough rethinking, re-strategizing and reinvestment. Bélanger P., Redeining Infrastructure . In: Mostafavi M., Doherty G. (eds.), Ecological Urbanism, Lars Müller Publishers, 2010, pp. 332-349. TAKE OFF | 21 Research Platforms