Providing walkability, public art and local character to Austin's fast growing airport.
The project encouraged travelers to walk along the spine between the airport and the parking garage through visual interest, seating, and greenery. The walkway gave visitors and employees a respite by providing social spaces and art.
The project installed public art along the pedestrian spine, and the landscaping was placed to interact with the pieces. The planters push and pull people towards the art by creating a defined pedestrian circulation oriented to the pieces.
Lighting, visual clarity, and landscaping created a walkway that made it easy and safe for travelers to walk from the parking garage to the airport. The ease of access encouraged people to walk rather than take a shuttle.
The signature feature of the landscape design is a pedestrian “spine” connecting the terminal to the surface parking lots; curvilinear seat walls respond to the building architecture and create large planting and respite areas along the central walk, which follows a stained concrete ribbon to the terminal entry. Two Art In Public Places projects will be located within the “spine.”
Asakura Robinson worked closely with the client, City of Austin Art in Public Places program, PGAL, and the artists to configure pedestrian movements around and beneath the installations by Marc Fornes’ The Very Many and Odom + Bieg. The landscape design along with these signature art pieces will increase the visibility of the pedestrian path and provide visual interest and opportunities to rest in the shade along the walk.
As the terminal continues to expand in the future, the pedestrian spine will increase in importance as a prominent entry to ABIA. Asakura Robinson also provided landscape design and construction observation for a plaza for the administration building in addition to new, highly colorful native plantings along the entry medians and surface parking exit plaza.
