Lifestyle
And other things I’ve learned designing airport terminals
Obsession: What do passengers moan about to airport staff? Queues? Delays? Being manhandled by security. No. Everybody has a very strong opinion as to what represents a good loo.
Airports are rarely considered pleasant. Studies have suggested that the air travel experience is more stressful that moving house, and much of that unease is down to the queues at check-in, the hassle of security, and hanging around a crowded building hoping your flight won’t be delayed.
So Barry Weekes has something of a thankless task. It’s his job, as Head of Design for Heathrow, to make the process of getting from airport doors to runway as enjoyable as possible.
Here’s what he’s learned in his time at British busiest aviation hub.
1
We’re obsessed with the loo: What do passengers moan about to airport staff? Queues? Delays? Being manhandled by security. Nope.
“I get far more feedback on toilets than any other aspect of the airport experience,” says Barry. “Everybody has a very strong opinion as to what represents a good loo. The colour scheme, where the handrail should be, the type of flooring, the size of the cubicles, whether there should be a shelf or hook in the cubicles, the number of urinals. You have to find a Goldilocks solution from all the feedback.”
2
It’s your fault the seats are uncomfortable: Airport seats seem pretty uniform (unless you’ve access to a premium lounge, that is). Stiff, upright, metal frames, with only a modest square of padding to protect your backside. At Heathrow, however, we’ve only got ourselves to blame.
Barry explains: “We did a trial at Terminal 3 where we introduced new ‘hub’ seating, that was meant to be a more comfortable offering to the standard seating. It featured four chairs clustered around a coffee table. What we found, however, was that as soon as one person occupied a single seat on a cluster of four, everyone else would avoid them. It became a territorial thing. The more standard set up prevents people creating their own little fiefdom — or moving two chairs together to create a bed.” If only us Brits were more sociable.
3
Red colours are a no-no: Green is renowned for being a calming colour, and it forms part of the core palette in Heathrow’s terminals. “You have to be very careful when it comes to colours,” Barry warns. “Terminals have a life of 15-20 years, sometimes longer. If you go for a very contemporary col- our scheme it can quickly become dated and old fashioned. We used to have burgundy and grey interiors. It was very contemporary in the 80s, but in about five years we were almost forced to get rid of it. We also avoid reds and blacks.”
4
Some people hate the smell of chocolate: Signature scents are all the rage. Hotels do it (The Dorchester smells like fig and cassis, apparently), so do department stores. And Heathrow tried it. “We’ve looked at piping smells into the terminal before,” says Barry. “Coffee smells in the morning and also the smell of hot chocolate. But we found that, while for some people it is very pleasant, other people find it abhorrent. In pleasing some people you upset others. The smell of hot chocolate isn’t appealing to everyone, as surprising as it sounds.”
5
We’re witnessing the death of the airport carpet: “Ever since the dawn of time man has separated himself from the lifeless earth beneath him with carpets. Nowhere has this renunciation of man’s transience been more joyous or uplifting than in the medium of airport carpets.”
No, these aren’t Barry’s words, but the greeting on the website carpetsforairports.com. Yes, airport carpets have cult followings.
But cost concerns mean they are a dying feature of air travel. Even Portland Airport’s carpet, which had its own Facebook page with 13,000 followers, was removed in 2015. Barry explains: “Carpets were once used extensively, and they are great for acoustics and comfort, but the maintainance and cleaning costs mean harder floors are now favoured. There are good and bad examples still out there, though. Singapore had some fairly garish carpets.”
6
Frankfurt Airport ain’t pretty: What does Barry look for in an airport? “It needs to be seamless, not like clunking through the gears,” he says. “A sense of where you’re landing is also important, so even a transfer passenger feels like they’ve had a taste of the country.
So which are his favourites? “Singapore Changi plays strongly to Singapore’s sense of place, it’s a living environment, with the tropical plants, butterfly gardens, and waterfalls,” he says. “Heathrow has looked at similar things, but you need more space and there would be a big cost to provide the right climate for butterflies.
“Oslo is also very good in terms of the ambience and matching its surroundings. Billund is very good if you’re a fan of Ikea-style design. Vancouver also has a very interesting experience, themed around the Canadian lifestyle.”
And which airport does he hate? “Frankfurt is the like a grey battleship,” says Barry. “You’d be hard pushed to find a more drab and mechanical colour scheme. Oppressive and depressing in equal measure.”
7
Pop music isn’t so popular: “We play music in the toilets to create a calmer ambience — but also to disguise other noises that occur in those spaces,” says Barry. “We used to play Capital Radio a long time ago, but it is now deemed inappro- priate. We usually go for safer music: marching bands or classical. We have to tread a fine line because, like smells, one person’s music is another person’s loud noise.”
8
Acoustics matter: Barry explains: “When we’re designing a terminal building it is important to make it acoustically as strong as possible, so the ambiant noise of other passengers doesn’t create a stressful situation. It all helps reduce the sense that passengers are being pushed through a horrific box.” Quite.
9
Heathrow wants every chair to have its own charging point: There’s nothing worse than boarding a flight, or arriving in a new destination, with a depleted battery. So why do so few airports offering charging terminals? It’s an issue Heathrow, which claims to have 3,000 power sockets across the airport, is trying to addess. “We want to eventually have it so every seat has an indivivudal charging device, whether that’s USB or, perhaps in the future, via Bluetooth,” says Barry.
10
There’s a reason you can’t find an empty seat: “We have a formula that assumes not everyone will not be seated at once,” says Barry. “What we don’t want is acres of empty seats for the one time everyone wants to sit down at the same time.” So during very busy times (200,000 passengers travel through Heathrow each day), or when several flights are delayed, you may struggle to find a chair.
11
The airport of the future could look like an Arnie movie: Technology and automation will completely transform the passenger experience, says Barry. He adds: “Will there even be such a thing as check-in? Will we have Total Recallstyle security, where you don’t actually see any personnel, or interact with them, but are simply scanned by unseen technology? W ill we then place our bags on a carousel ourselves, go through to a departure lounge and board the aircraft at our leisure? And if all this happens, will people miss the human touch?”