The winners of the thirteenth Architizer A+Awards have been introduced! Waiting for subsequent season? Keep updated by subscribing to our A+Awards E-newsletter.
Structure has by no means been freed from sides. For greater than a century, designers have debated the strain between type and performance. It was all the time between what buildings ought to do and the way they need to look. Within the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, the pendulum swung in direction of utility. Modernism stripped buildings of decoration within the title of logic and effectivity. “Type follows perform” turned a mantra. The “millennial gray” and wooden materials palette dominated the inside and exterior scape. Magnificence, when it appeared, was a byproduct of rational design.
Postmodernism pushed again, reasserting expression, symbolism, and id. Then got here high-tech structure, which celebrated methods and efficiency. Extra not too long ago, digital instruments allowed architects to chase pure type once more; this time as spectacle. Every part clarified that when type dominates, customers typically get misplaced within the noise, and when perform guidelines, area turns into sterile.
The Shift
Portland Worldwide Airport Terminal by ZGF Architects, Portland, Oregon | Jury Winner, Airports and Transportation Facilities, thirteenth Architizer A+Awards
Within the final decade, one thing quieter has been rising. A brand new mannequin that’s neither strictly purposeful nor purely expressive has begun to take form. It grounds itself in temper, slowness, tactility and care. Architects are not asking solely how a constructing performs or the way it presents. They’re asking the way it makes folks really feel. It began with intimate and personal areas like loos and not too long ago prolonged to public infrastructure.
The principle terminal growth at Portland Worldwide Airport, designed by ZGF, could also be some of the instructive examples of this shift. It reveals us what occurs when type and performance cease competing and begin collaborating in service to human wellbeing. ZGF don’t attempt to impress with visible drama or technical spectacle. As an alternative, they take a extra intentional path by organizing the areas round materials heat, pure gentle and spatial softness.
The same old depth of airport motion is subtle throughout open pavilions and resting factors. Sightlines are lengthy, acoustics are softened and the constructing appears extra concerned with creating an expertise that speaks to the physique and the nervous system. It’s not a radical reinvention per se. It’s nonetheless a terminal and planes nonetheless arrive at and depart from it. However the way in which the area and construction is shaped suggests a shift in priorities. This isn’t taking place in isolation. It displays a broader change in how structure is responding to the way in which we stay now.
Why Now?
Portland Worldwide Airport Terminal by ZGF Architects, Portland, Oregon | Jury Winner, Airports and Transportation Facilities, thirteenth Architizer A+Awards
Structure doesn’t exist in a vacuum however responds to how folks stay and really feel. Proper now, we stay quick, distracted, and fairly frankly, underneath strain. The world is mediated by way of screens, notifications, and countless scrolls. This has made lots of the areas we transfer by way of equivalent to: places of work, airports, and public buildings, to reflect that tempo. They’re typically designed for effectivity and never presence or readability however one thing is altering.
Designers are starting to acknowledge that every one buildings have a direct impression on the physique and thoughts. That the environments we inhabit form our stress ranges, our focus, productiveness and even how properly we breathe. Psychological well being, sensory fatigue and nervous system regulation are turn into a part of the structure transient. That is particularly helpful in public infrastructure designs, the place folks don’t get to decide on their surroundings.
Operate Redefined
Portland Worldwide Airport Terminal by ZGF Architects, Portland, Oregon | Jury Winner, Airports and Transportation Facilities, thirteenth Architizer A+Awards
In response, architects are rethinking the definition of “perform.” Its not nearly efficiency or productiveness but in addition about restoration, consideration, and ease. On this shift, design turns into a device for restoration as a lot as exercise.
Portland’s terminal is a stay illustration of this evolution’s extension to public infrastructure. It’s an area the place structure doesn’t simply shelter or shine. The mass timber cover diffuses gentle and absorbs noise The spatial sequences are mild and breathable. The Y-shaped columns, market areas, and tender materials palette work collectively to create a Rivendell for vacationers in Portland.
The constructing is emotionally calibrated to really feel like a really nice teleporting expertise — one which doesn’t jolt you from one place to a different, however carries you in a state of quiet consciousness. ZGF designed the terminal to melt transitions and to unfold motion moderately than speed up it. As an alternative of the chilly procedural funnel that almost all airports current, the Portland terminal unfolds motion and cares for vacationers past signage and slogans.
The Design Language of Wellbeing
Portland Worldwide Airport Terminal by ZGF Architects, Portland, Oregon | Jury Winner, Airports and Transportation Facilities, thirteenth Architizer A+Awards
There isn’t any overt aesthetic language of “care.” As an alternative, it’s embedded in how the constructing performs visually and atmospherically. The language of wellbeing just isn’t symbolical, it’s operational. It reveals that wellbeing will be delivered by way of type and never as an afterthought or floor remedy.
Portland’s terminal affords a helpful case research on how this language is spoken with out essentially resorting to spectacle. Its impression just isn’t the results of any single gesture, however of a constant, system-wide strategy to materials, area, gentle and sound.
Materials as Temper
On the heart of the terminal’s design is its roof: a large-span timber cover constructed from regionally sourced glulam and plywood panels. Whereas wooden is usually related to visible heat, its use right here is primarily purposeful. It contributes to acoustic dampening, mitigates the size of the terminal, and introduces a softer materials palette with out compromising construction. In distinction to the metallic and glass sometimes utilized in airport environments, the timber creates a extra visually legible ceiling and reduces reflectivity.
Gentle as Orientation
Portland Worldwide Airport Terminal by ZGF Architects, Portland, Oregon | Jury Winner, Airports and Transportation Facilities, thirteenth Architizer A+Awards
Daylight is used as a spatial device all through the terminal. The designers positioned skylights between the roof’s Y-shaped columns to introduce subtle pure gentle into the primary corridor. Fairly than solely counting on synthetic lighting or signage, they used brightness and shadow to help orientation and motion. This strategy reduces visible muddle and helps keep readability in an area with excessive foot site visitors.
Circulation as Regulation
The terminal avoids the linear, compressed corridors typical of airport planning. As an alternative, it introduces a sequence of bigger rooms, open nodes, and inside plazas that distribute motion throughout totally different scales. These interruptions in circulation create casual zones the place passengers can pause or change tempo. Whereas circulation is maintained, the spatial format reduces the sense of urgency typically related to terminal navigation.
Acoustics as Environmental Management
Portland Worldwide Airport Terminal by ZGF Architects, Portland, Oregon | Jury Winner, Airports and Transportation Facilities, thirteenth Architizer A+Awards
Acoustic efficiency seems to be an underlying issue within the materials and spatial technique. Timber parts assist dampen high-frequency noise, whereas the amount of the terminal and using tender supplies work collectively to scale back reverberation. This ends in a extra subdued sound surroundings in comparison with normal terminal designs, the place noise ranges are inclined to accumulate with out regulation.
Program as Civic House
The terminal’s program extends past motion and screening. Concession areas, open seating, and retail zones are organized in a format that recollects public markets or streetscapes. Supplies and planting additional soften the sting between transit infrastructure and public gathering area. Within the pre-security space particularly, the structure introduces spatial situations extra generally present in civic buildings than in transport hubs.
These design selections don’t dramatically redefine what an airport is, however they do level to a recalibration in priorities. Fairly than treating effectivity and management as the only design outcomes, the terminal incorporates spatial, sensory, and materials issues that help a wider vary of consumer wants. It means that infrastructure will be extra accommodating — not by way of visible spectacle, however by way of coordinated design that acknowledges human presence.
A Future Constructed to Really feel
Portland Worldwide Airport Terminal by ZGF Architects, Portland, Oregon | Jury Winner, Airports and Transportation Facilities, thirteenth Architizer A+Awards
The Portland terminal doesn’t symbolize a stylistic detour. It factors to a transparent course. Its materials, spatial, and environmental decisions replicate a shift in what architects are starting to prioritize, particularly within the context of public infrastructure. Success is not measured solely by pace or effectivity. New questions are coming to the floor. Does the area help readability? Does it assist folks keep grounded, targeted, and comfy? How does it really feel to maneuver by way of, each bodily and mentally?
These are not summary issues. They’re shaping the way in which buildings are designed. Emotional tone and sensory expertise are not handled as unwanted side effects of fine design. They’re changing into central to how perform is known. This shift doesn’t cut back efficiency. It strengthens it. The buildings that perform finest at this time are sometimes those that quiet the noise, sluggish the tempo, soften the sunshine, and create area for the physique and thoughts to settle.
Portland Worldwide Airport Terminal by ZGF Architects, Portland, Oregon | Jury Winner, Airports and Transportation Facilities, thirteenth Architizer A+Awards
We see this most clearly in locations the place consolation has not often been a precedence, like airports. And whereas Portland’s terminal is one particular instance, the pondering behind it may well apply throughout many contexts. Buildings don’t have to turn into sentimental. They should turn into extra clever about what folks deliver with them once they enter. That features stress, urgency, and the demand for areas that do extra than simply direct motion.
Structure not wants to decide on between type and performance. The 2 are not at odds. They’re working collectively, and collectively, they’re starting to know what it means to care.
The winners of the thirteenth Architizer A+Awards have been introduced! Waiting for subsequent season? Keep updated by subscribing to our A+Awards E-newsletter.
