In an attempt to upgrade the La Guardia Airport in New York, USA, to fix the issues of delays, confusion, and congestion, a complete redevelopment scheme was announced in 2015. Owing to this, LaGuardia Airport Terminal B was modernized by a collaborative team of HOK Architects, WSP, Skanska-Walsh, and LaGuardia Gateway Partners with a total project budget exceeding $5 billion, the largest public-private partnership (P3) investment in U.S. aviation history. The airport is one of its kind, with two distinct pedestrian bridges, respectively, connecting two disparate island concourses.

The 1.3 million square foot LGA Terminal B has bagged several awards and accolades in recognition of its excellence and efficiency, including UNESCO’s 2021 Prix Versailles for the best new airport in the world and the Excellence in Structural Engineering Award from the National Council of Structural Engineers Associations. The Terminal B LGA in Queens, New York, is the first in North America to receive a five-star rating from Skytrax. La Guardia Terminal B received LEED v4 Gold certification making it the world's first airport to earn such an exemplar rating. 

What Led to the Modernization Project?

LaGuardia Airport was long detested for its long waiting times by passengers, constant delays due to congestion, its inhuman design, insensible long corridors, and linear hallways. It is worth noting that then Vice President Joe Biden called it an airport from the “Third World Country”. 

Subsequently, the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, which manages the airport, proposed a $2.4 billion redesign project which the Governor of New York, Andrew Cuomo rejected for its outdated design. The Global Gateway Alliance commissioned Neoscape to produce the renderings of the redesigned LaGuardia’s Central terminal, which also didn’t see light.

Following this, the Governor of New York, Andrew Cuomo, along with Vice President Joe Biden, announced a Master Plan Competition calling for the Redesign of LaGuardia and John F. Kennedy International Airports at Vaughn College of Aeronautics and Technology in October 2014. The design concepts from three different New York-based firms - SHoP Architects, Dattner Architects, and Present Architecture were shortlisted by the Governor's Airport Advisory Panel, which then derived some of the best design solutions and recommendations from these concepts and prepared a report.

Again in May 2015, Cuomo announced that the New York state government would oversee the redesign project. The Port Authority declared the selection of a consortium called LaGuardia Gateway Partners to design, build, and oversee the redesign project, in addition to operating and maintaining the redeveloped airport for the upcoming 35 years.

The LaGuardia Gateway Partners consortium was composed of Vantage Airport Group, Skanska, Meridiam, and JLC Infrastructure for development and equity investment. With Skanska Walsh as the design-build joint venture partner, the Vantage Airport Group led the modernization program of the Central Terminal, while HOK and WSP were design partners.

In July 2015, the redesign proposal to raze the existing building and construct a unified terminal was released as vibrant renders to the public. The resulting conceptual design was an amalgamation of the three selected design proposals by SHoP Architects, Dattner Architects, and Present Architecture.

Mirroring 

New York City's Morphology 

The Port Authority’s initial proposal featured a linear headhouse with similar peninsular concourses that mimicked the existing design of the central terminal with a crescent-shaped headhouse with peninsular piers. But the consortium’s design team came up with a bold concept of “Island and Bridges” – Island Concourses reached via Pedestrian Bridges from the Headhouse, projecting the terminal as a reflection of New York’s Urban Morphology as the HOK President of the new terminal Carl Galioto precisely says “The metaphor is that New York is a city of islands and bridges…”

More than being a metaphor, the concept embodied a vision, instilling a sense of place of that of New York, not some other Third World Country, giving the terminal what it lacked previously. This conceptual solution also improved the efficiency of the airport, brought about aesthetics, eased the construction process, optimized the construction costs and duration, and catered to the sustainability commitments set. The “Island and Bridges” is truly an overarching concept that lent an ear to all the constraints and necessities and addressed them.

The designers derived the concept even for the terminal’s interior design, from the city’s Urban Morphology - the green pockets in the heart of New York City, that complemented the rich built infrastructure and offered a chance for encounters, interactions, and building communities in the neighborhood. Reflecting the daily life in New York cutting across the green parks, the core idea was to rejuvenate the interiors and add life to the glass and steel container by inserting green zones wherever possible, adding to the “New Yorkness” of the terminal. 

Massing of the Terminal: Churning Opportunities out of Challenges 

Peter Ruggiero, design principal at HOK, “It was a bit like driving down the highway at 60 miles per hour, getting a flat, and having to change the tire without being able to stop the car,” says Peter Ruggiero, design principal at HOK, architect of the massive challenging 35-gate redevelopment project.

The exaggeration in Ruggiero’s words outlines the intensity of the challenges faced in realizing this project. The redevelopment of the Terminal was quite challenging as the airport with 35 gates catering to around 45,000 passengers daily had to be functioning uninterruptedly even when the construction was ongoing.

Another major conundrum was the lack of space for expansion of the area for airfield operations, as LGA was sandwiched between the Grand Central Parkway and the East River. However, the expansion was necessary as the main reason that fueled the redevelopment of the terminal was the delays, congestion, and prolonged waiting hours for passengers in LaGuardia, which were caused by a lack of space for airfield operations.

The redesign scheme was subjected to these constraints, paving the way to the island and bridge concept - both efficient and aesthetic. But even the Island and Bridges design interfered with the airport traffic control tower's sightline and caused problems that the designers cleverly sought out.

With the considerations, the designers decided to erect the new 850,000 square foot 4-story headhouse first, in front of the existing terminal, in between it and the Grand Central Parkway, bringing it approximately 600 feet south, closer to the Parkway, relieving 40 acres of land for airside operations and two miles of additional taxiway, addressing the major problem of its predecessor directly.

A 3,000-space parking garage was replaced with another garage with a capacity of 3100 parking bays in the west. The existing headhouse was razed carefully, after the completion of the two concourses, the Eastern Concourse and the Western Concourse, developed as islands on the airside and two separate 450-foot-long and 65-foot-high pedestrian bridges situated above the existing terminal which after demolition will become the aircraft taxiway. 

The sky bridges were subjected to height constraints both from below and above. The sky bridges housed the recaptured taxiway below and thus had to leave a 57-foot clearance, allowing Group 4 aircraft like Boeing 767 to pass underneath. But as of now, only Group 3 aircraft operate in Terminal B LGA, making the initiative a future-proofing measure.

Since the airport operations were in full swing even during construction, it wasn't affordable to allow any obstruction to the visibility from the air traffic control tower to the apron. Thus, the concourse roofs were gently tapered and the bridges were subject to this height constraint.
Contributing to the aesthetics, the skybridges offer a pleasing view of the vibrant skyline of Manhattan and that of the aircraft operations beneath them on the ground level. On the other hand, the sky bridges themselves become an icon, a hallmark, and a symbol reminiscent of the newly revamped Terminal B in LaGuardia.

Understanding the Zoning in LGA Terminal B

While the Eastern concourse features 19 gates numbered 40 to 49 and 51 to 57, the Western concourse features gates numbered 11 to 31. Both the concourses housed an admirals club and a dedicated children's play area.

On the outside, the headhouse has three separate roadways for different types of vehicles and based on function - ground level for large high-occupancy vehicles, the second for arrivals, and the third for departures. The punctured floor slabs ensure that the daylight reaches the baggage claim carousels, welcome zone, and shops on the lower levels.

The third-floor features airline ticketing and check-in counters and the security checkpoint gives access to the concourses. From the security checkpoint, the passengers can access the Post Transportation Security Administration amenities including extensive dining and shopping facilities.

From the fourth floor, passengers can take the pedestrian sky bridges leading to the concourses. The sky bridges also house a few food and beverage kiosks for the passengers to enjoy their meals with aircraft taxiing underneath and taking off overhead, with the city's vibrant skyline in between drawing their attention.

The Sensorial Retreat in the Interiors 

The LaGuardia Gateway Partners in collaboration with the Public Art Fund, transformed the world-class airport into an art gallery featuring the works of artists Jeppe Hein, Sabine Hornig, Laura Owens, and Sarah Sze. The custom public art installations showcased in the headhouse and other parts of the LGA terminal B were curated by the Public Art Fund in partnership with the LaGuardia Gateway Partners.

The abundance of green pockets in the interiors complemented the daylight that enters the terminals through the floor-to-ceiling high expansive glass facades, which mimic an outdoor park experience, and provide soothing, relaxing waiting areas in the terminal. The two island concourses feature intricately landscaped zones – concourse parks with lush green flora, intertwined seating areas, and display areas in the center of the concourses, drawing on New York City’s extensive range of parks.

Inspired by the Umpire Rock at Central Park, a nude-colored rock-like texture was chosen for the fluid organic shaped modular precast GFRC planters that induced a sense of fluidity and movement in the space. While the design of the comfy built-in integrated seating that flanked these organically shaped planters offered an unconventional experience, paired with the regular moveable furnishings, the combination encouraged social interaction, resembling that found in New York City’s Parks, giving a stark ‘sense of place’ of the revamped Terminal. 

The 40-foot-tall fabricated trees and smaller multi-stem trees with preserved tree trunks, in the daylight, cast shadows on the patterned floor and provide shade to the passengers seated beneath, bringing about the experience exactly as in the outdoor parks inside the terminal. The verticality of the trees is balanced by the green groundcovers and ferns.

Undulating metal sculptures and artefacts find their spots in the groundcover representing Upstate New York. These state-of-the-art green pockets induce a human scale, serve as a sensorial retreat, and provide moments of relief and introspection within the massive high-tech world-class infrastructure.

The terminal serves over 17.5 million passengers annually, a glass and steel container hiding the constructional details beneath concrete panels is a compound of over 40,000 tons of steel, an 85-foot tall glass wall spanning the entire length of 1200 feet, and over 9,000 custom-made prefabricated GFRG and GFRC panels. The 850,000-square-foot headhouse alone was built with around 10000 steel pieces weighing 12,000 tons, heavier than the steel that makes up the Eiffel Tower. The 450-foot-long pedestrian skybridges needed 2500 tons of steel for its realization.

As the span and dimensions of the pedestrian bridges were strictly constrained and as the construction had to take place in a fully operating airport terminal, the structural design of the components was complex. Also, a minor change in the design or the form meant delayed construction and excessive costs.

The designers used HOK STREAM a parametric modeling and optimization tool which proved instrumental in designing the constrained skybridges for the LGA Terminal B. The engineers generated various geometric mutations of the sky bridge, studied the structural feasibility right from the beginning, and settled on the most efficient yet aesthetic design.

If you would like to leverage the parametric design tools like the HOK STREAM that aided the intricate constrained design of the LGA Terminal B pedestrian bridges, learn with PAACADEMY. Attend workshops at PAACADEMY to learn from the industry’s best experts how to use advanced parametric design tools, AI in design workflows, and computational design in architecture.

A vertical truss system, 20 - 40 feet deep, laid on an eight-foot deep base hiding the ducts and connected with moment-frame beams in the plane of the bridge facades, make up the long-span sky bridges structurally. The truss system is linked with horizontal bracings on the roof and in the plane of the bridge deck, for lateral stability.

The truss system's chords consisted of flat, built-up sections, while the diagonal members were a mix of rolled and built-up sections. For the longer, shallower skybridge, grade 65 steel was used, while grade 50 steel was employed for the shorter, deeper one. To preserve the stunning views from the skybridges, braced frames were avoided in the main viewing areas and were only included on the concourse side, specifically near the escalators and elevators.

The structural steel elements of the sky bridge, column, beams and other complex components with compound curves for ceiling transitions were clad in custom-made prefabricated glass-fiber reinforced gypsum (GRG) and glass-fiber reinforced concrete (GFRC) panels.

Towards Sustainability, Resilience, and Efficiency

Achieving sustainability in airports is way more complicated than in simple structures and ubiquitous spaces. The designers have taken the usual route of passive sustainable solutions by identifying the appropriate orientation, incorporating daylighting in the design, and using mezzanine floors allowing light to reach through the depth of the structure reducing the need for artificial lights and enhancing wayfinding. In the Terminal, the western car parking garage is topped with solar panels.

A solar system powers the thermal heating of the water used in restrooms. The baggage handling system enters a sleep mode when not in use conserving energy. The demolition debris was diverted from landfills, repurposed, and used for new construction. The sustainable solutions implemented provide an 18% reduction in energy consumption and 43% in water savings.

However, with the innovative overarching design concept, the architects have gone the extra mile, taking the first step towards achieving a reduction in the airport’s greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions by 80 percent by 2050. The additional dual lane taxiways created underneath the pedestrian bridges reduce the time spent by aircraft taxiing, actually waiting and idling, minimizing the aircraft fuel consumption and pollution.

Further, the design is resilient and future-proofed, especially in the context of flood-prone Terminal B LGA and the proximity to the water body making LGA Terminal B susceptible to storms frequently. The architects have concealed the important activities in concrete structures underground or have moved the critical systems upwards on the higher levels of the Terminal B LGA. Subsequently, the humble attempt to reduce GHG emissions paves the way to alleviate the deteriorating effects of climate change.

Rick Cotton, the executive director at the Port Authority expresses “The evolution from worst-in-class to best-in-class is something that we are very proud of... It’s not just that the airport is new, but that, as passengers experience the architecture, interior design, public art, and multiple concessions, they recognize that they’re in New York, too.”

LaGuardia Airport Terminal B Modernization Project Details

Project Name: LaGuardia Airport Terminal B 
Architect: HOK Group
Client: Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, New York
Location: LaGuardia Airport, Queens, New York
Photography: Global Gateway Alliance, Governor Andrew Cuomo’s Office, Hoffman, HOK, Jeff Golberg | Esto, LaGuardia Gateway Partners
Drawings: HOK