For the sole indoor environment that I will be doing for the portfolio, I have decided to merge the airport terminal and underground station ideas into one. This will be a great way to better hone in my skills from a level design perspective as well as explore some additional elements to ensure this piece is well-developed.
To show how well the indoor piece will be, we first have to look at one example, that being the Heathrow Airport (Google Maps, 2022) and how its underground stations connect to the rest of the London Underground.
As well as road travel, the Piccadilly and Elizabeth lines offers the airport an additional means of travel to access the airport. Ellen (1975) describes a benefit to the Heathrow extension, quoting that “One of the main benefits of the underground extension has been to reduce road congestion in the approach roads to the airport by carrying an expected 30% of air travellers.” Janić (2011) also states that rail travel through the underground is part of the travel to and from London. Janić also lists London Heathrow as an example “partially thanks to the agreement between the airport and the environmental regulator” to build Terminal 5 to the west of the airport. (Google Maps, 2022).
In addition to the exterior, the interior is much more important for travellers to familiarise themselves with the layout. Three crucial areas are realized when thinking about the design process of any airport. Ayazkhani et al. (2017) has developed some circular CAD models of three crucial airport features. These included the check-in, baggage claim and boarding areas. The journal also lists benefits from each three areas of the simulated airport. The check-in area “promotes sociability between passengers, all of whom are able to recognize important information at first glance.”, the baggage claim eases congestion and has a large information display attached above each island, and the boarding areas accommodates two large screens displaying boarding times. All but one of these include seating arrangements for passengers to relax for a while. (page 1237-1238).
Now when we compare the interior design and shape of an airport terminal to that of Heathrow’s underground train stations, we see a stark contrast in terms of how the shape of the space is designed.
Where as Ayazkhani’s airport CAD environment is entirely circular and spacious, the Heathrow underground station is more rectangular and compact. The contrasting shape helps makes it identifiable and engaging to the viewers or players if this were to be a fully playable game environment.
There’s also the matter of how security is designed at an airport as well. Wendover Productions (2018) highlights a map in which the process of security starts and ends, labelling how airports in the US handles them. “After check-in, a passenger first goes to have their documents checked, puts their bags through an x-ray scanner, and walks through either a metal detector or millimeter wave scanner.” This is the process normally used for most people.
Conclusion
I have learnt that Heathrow’s underground design and the airport’s design used in Ayazkhani’s design are both vastly different to each other, and how the latter design has the purpose of being a friendly and easy environment for passengers with how the display boards are curved instead of rectangular. This design aspect might be something I can use for in my environment for instance.
References:
Ayazkhani, A., Castro, A., Christ, T., & Milbredt, O. (2017) Passenger-centric airport management via new terminal interior design concepts. Transportation Research Procedia, 27, 1235-1241.
Bailey UK (2022) Heathrow Underground Station. Available online: https://www.builtwithbailey.com/en/projects/heathrow-underground-station [Accessed 22nd November 2022]
Ellen, E, R. (1975) SURFACE ACCESS TO HEATHROW AIRPORT – THE UNDERGROUND SOLUTION. Chartered Institute of Transport Journal. 38(4) 107-110.
Google Maps (2022) Heathrow Airport. Bird’s Eye View. Available online: https://www.google.com/maps/@51.4713625,-0.4505094,14.47z [Accessed 16th November 2022]
Heathrow Airport to London with the Picadilly Line (2022) Available online: https://freetoursbyfoot.com/heathrow-airport-underground/ [Accessed 16th November 2022]
Janić, M (2011) Light Rail Rapid Transit systems for more sustainable ground accessibility of airports. Transportation Planning and Technology, 34(6), 569-592.
Wendover Productions (2018) How to Design Impenetrable Airport Security [Video] Available online: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1Y1kJpHBn50 [Accessed 5th December 2022]