LaGuardia Airport New Terminal B Concourse Park

The New Terminal B at LaGuardia Airport is a long-anticipated reinvention of a classic New York City icon that evokes the vibrancy, individuality, and cultural diversity of New York City. The design guidelines of the New Terminal park called for a genuine sense of place, a New-Yorkness, that is people-centered and promotes pedestrian interaction and activities.

The Park design explores a new approach to an airport landscape by creating familiar places and everyday experiences of people and nature often found in the heart of city parks. The project takes inspiration from the pocket parks of New York City that thread together open spaces and unite neighborhoods. One of the defining elements include a series of organically shaped modular precast GFRC (Glass Fiber Reinforced Concrete) planters. The sinuous forms promote fluid and intuitive movement, while the built-in seating and moveable chairs and tables recall the socially engaging park furnishings found in many New York City parks.

The planters feature a tree canopy and a lush and textured understory that enable passengers to intimately experience the scale, tactility, and sensibilities of being in a park. Although the operational requirements of the airport limited the use of live trees, the use of grand scale museum-quality fabricated trees with preserved trunks helped create a genuine sense of scale and place. The live understory planting resembles a park forest floor and maximizes the park experience. The cloudburst paving patterns simulate tree shading with dappled lighting on a park ground. Collectively, the features of the park significantly enhance the passenger experience and promote a sense of comfort in a hectic and bustling airport environment.

There were stringent code and operational requirements specific to airports such as fire and safety, seat counts at holdrooms, and passenger movement clearance along the central corridors. The design successfully negotiated all requirements while maintaining the integrity of the concept and vision. The Park supports the sustainability mission of the airport by adhering to the established sustainable construction practice. The New Terminal B was recognized with the first-ever Envision Platinum award for sustainability and resilience.

The concourse park at LaGuardia Airport illustrates an approach in creating moments of genuine and intimate park experiences for people within large and impersonal infrastructural environments. Passengers are immediately immersed in a people-scaled green environment and can experience an authentic sense of community often found in the cherished public parks of New York City.