The Financial Times‘ Sarah Murray had an article in yesterday’s edition about the trend toward making commercial (or inhospitable) places more homey: “creating pockets of homeliness in otherwise impersonal environments.” Dividing spaces into living-room sized areas, artwork by legitimate artists, residential lighting…these are key elements of the home-away-from-home strategy.
Tragically, the online version includes only one tiny picture (come ON, FT – your paper showed the space divisions superbly, and I can’t find those pics anywhere else). But the article features Heathrow airport’s “Terminal 5” – it looks pretty cool, doesn’t it? –
and plans for the British Antarctic Survey’s new research station. (I guess a place where the temperature is -50 degrees celsius for several months a year would need some cozying up.)
My initial response to the article was, “Well, duh.” Isn’t this just common sense?
But you know what? It isn’t. I don’t have a background in commercial design, and I’m not an architect. But based on this layperson’s observations, public spaces like airports have gotten more user-friendly (with chain restaurants, shopping-mall-like retail environments, places to plug in your cell phone and laptop, Wi-Fi, etc.) but they haven’t gotten more home-like.
So believe it or not, this is news. It’s a new strategy.
Of course, Heathrow’s Terminal 5 won’t be for the great unwashed; it will be for top-level travelers only. Ironic, isn’t it? Only the people who pay the most will get to feel like they never left home.
These pictures were taken from British Airways’ website about Terminal 5.
This FT article had another interesting angle that I’ll examine in my next post: a color consultant helped with some of these projects. Woo-hoo!