thecages

From the NYTimes (via that bastion of fine reading - The Sunday Times):

Passengers May Now Pirouette Their Way to Gate 3

In short it's about an architect who collaborated with a choreographer to improve the flow of people through a new airport terminal.


The Grand Foyer at Radio City Music Hall has been described as many things[...] But it has not typically been described in the language of dance, as it recently was by [...] David Rockwell. The room, he said, functioned as a kind of ballet master: a magnetic presence that forced people to move well and look good.
[...]
Individual behaviour is only part of the story; the Grand Foyer also alters the behaviour of crowds, who instinctively know how to use it. [...] visitors, without even realizing it, use the room's precisely deployed architectural signposts [...] to align themselves and stay on track.
As a result, Radio City can pull 5,900 people through its lobby without contusion or confusion.

[Mr Rockwell's] latest project involves one of the most notoriously pushy environments there is: an airport terminal [...] the new JetBlue Airways terminal being built at Kennedy International Airport.
[In] what may be a first for architectural collaboration, Mr. Rockwell hired a choreographer - his Broadway colleague Jerry Mitchell - to help him.

"The original design made it hard to understand where you were supposed to go, either entering or leaving," Mr. Mitchell said of the JetBlue terminal flow simulations. "Traffic diagrams showed a huge amount of path-crossing. I started to think it would be fabulous to eliminate all this criss-crossing and straight edges, which cause anxiety when they go on too long.[...] People move easiest in circles; off and on the merry-go-round."

The design did not account for [...] the different emotional experiences of arrival or departure. "Coming into an airport when you're leaving on a trip you have to slow down, you've got to arrive two hours early, and you've got security, luggage, kids, older people to deal with. That experience has to be made more leisurely. Coming back, to New York at least, you want to get out of the airport as fast as possible."
[...]
So he and the architects looked for ways to alter the shape and pace of passenger movement within the terminal.

Various obstructions (principally two large bleacherlike seating areas[...]) would subtly lead outbound travellers toward the periphery of the space - the longer, more circular route - while inbound travelers would be directed straight between them, down a level and swiftly out.
The periphery walls would be curved to slow down the outbound experience and, not incidentally, enhance the likelihood of lingering over merchandise.
And the bleacherlike seating areas would encourage people to get above the action and watch the shapes of the promenade.
[...]
Mr. Mitchell: "Is it an airport? Is it a Broadway show? What's the difference?"