Dialogue 20 - Gensler

dialogue
20 . A
Talking about...
Leisure & Lifestyle
Leisure’s Brave New World
Sports & the City
Retail’s Spirit of Place
The New and the Renewed
dialogue 20 I Leisure
Gensler publication
1

Downtown has to be like a
good stew. A lot has to go into
it to make people hungry.
Tim Leiweke, president and CEO, AEG
cover:
Coffee Bean & Tea Leaf, Seoul.
above:
L.A. LIVE in downtown Los Angeles.
opposite, from left:
Waitrose Cookery School, London;
Coffee Bean & Tea Leaf, Seoul; SFO’s
Terminal 2; Edens & Avant, Columbia, SC.
2
We now live in at least two places at once. Plugged into smart
devices, we interact with others in volleys of brief text, photos
and films taken with our phones, and things seen and shared. Yet
we’re also somewhere real. Sometimes these two places mesh
well and we get more from them both than we might from one or
the other alone. Other times, we barely notice where we are—or
we’re so caught up in here that we’re essentially unplugged from
there. Leisure’s task is to embrace this conundrum. Although
being connected is practically a sine qua non, it’s not just about
integrating technology. It’s also about urbanity, that close-at-hand
cosmos of things that whet the appetite—that make you hungry
enough, as Tim Leiweke puts it, to want to taste them.
Features
2
Leisure’s Brave New World
Today, leisure caters to a clientele that’s
pressed for time as never before, yet still
longs to unplug, engage, and enjoy.
10
Sports & the City
Sports venues are emerging as part of the
urban fabric, a crucial part of the mix that
anchors and enlivens city centers.
14
Retail and Its Communities
As social media proliferate, the communities
they hook up need places to land. More often
than not, retail provides them.
18
The New and the Renewed
Hospitality is enjoying an upsurge. Across
markets and price points, hospitality brands
are expanding and modernizing.
2 14 26
Departments
22
Conversation: Centers of Experience
For AEG’s Tim Leiweke, the visionary of L.A.
LIVE, and retail guru Paco Underhill, place
brings leisure alive, and vice versa.
26
Case Study: SFO’s Terminal 2
SFO’s recast Terminal 2 is resetting
expectations. Distinctively San Franciscan,
it even wowed Virgin’s Richard Branson.
32
News + Views
Edens & Avant creates a vertical community,
Houston gives its ballet a home, and
Oklahoma City gets a bold new band shell.
3
32

above:
Waitrose Cookery School connects the
UK supermarket brand to its customers.
2
Leisure’s
brave
new
worLdBy MiMi Zeiger
The leisure sector is being reshaped by the Web 2.0–fueled
shift to personally directed experience. Yet community, that
face-to-face proposition, is still hugely important.
dialogue 20 I Leisure
3

above:
The Wenger store puts its trademark
knives prominently on display.
opposite:
The Boulder store infuses Wenger’s
outdoor products with its brand.
4
Informed individuals drive the leisure market. They’re
not “consumers” in the old sense, responding passively
to market cues.
Leisure is being transformed by what might be called
the convergence factor. It’s not just that social media
are erasing the old demographic categories or that
Wi-Fi ubiquity is erasing distance. It’s more that these
phenomena are blurring the old boundaries, creating
such a proliferation of options that people constantly
feel pressed for time. They expect to pack much, much
more into every waking minute, yet they also want to
unplug, engage, and enjoy.
Working across the sector—entertainment, hospitality,
retail, and sports—the leisure team at Gensler has
tapped into this new reality and found that the clientele
is supercharging its preferences in a way that affects
leisure’s real and virtual contexts. “The customer is king,”
says Tom Ito. “Whether you’re buying a car, shopping
for clothes, or booking a hotel, you do your research
first. Informed individuals drive the market—they’re not
‘consumers’ in the old sense, responding passively to
market cues.”
Learning as leisure
One way people engage is by mastering new activities.
Hands-on learning is a growing part of leisure. The rise of
brands and media platforms focused on this speaks to
the broad appeal and marketability of learning to cook,
craft, and build. Do-it-yourself projects are part of a
lifestyle that values the homemade and artisanal. While
this may seem like a return to an earlier era, there’s a
strong connection now between learning environments
and social media. They reinforce each other, building
on the reality that mastering the skills still requires face
time and hands-on engagement.
“Leisure often combines real experiences with virtual
networking. Social media help form and extend a
community that also gathers in real time in a real-world
setting,” explains Owain Roberts. “People want that
connection.” An example is the Waitrose Cookery School
in London. Waitrose is a British supermarket chain,
and the school is the first of its kind in the UK. Working
with food-service and lighting consultants, Gensler
designed a bright, contemporary school that captures the
spirit and warmth of the communal kitchen. The school
is a meeting ground for home chefs, professional chefs,
food writers and experts, and gourmands. Fully equipped
for learning, it has 12 kitchen stations for skills-based
classes and a dining area to sample the results. There’s
also a wine bar for tastings and a demonstration theater
for big public events. “It’s about pulling people with like
mindsets together in a singular experience,” Roberts
says. “It’s as much socializing as learning, and it lets
Waitrose and its customers relate in a new way.”
That two-way relationship is what leisure brands crave.
A case in point is the new Wenger flagship store in
Boulder, Colorado. Wenger makes the Swiss Army knife
and other outdoor equipment. To cater to its customers
in Boulder, the store has a dedicated area for lectures
and demonstrations. The centerpiece of the space is a
Colorado artist’s large, woven wall sculpture, made out
of hand-cut pine logs wrapped in twine. To connect
with its customers, Wenger invites them to post handwritten
notes on the wall, sharing favorite camping spots
and hiking trails with other outdoor enthusiasts that
make the Wenger store their base camp.
dialogue 20 I Leisure
5

Cities provide the model for mixed-use develop ment.
In turn, the synergy these different uses generate is
sparking new life in the urban realm.
Keeping it real
“People are so intent on maximizing their time,” says
Kathleen Jordan. “It’s amazing how much they pack into
their spare moments.” Because they have such a wealth
of choices, the promise of an authentic experience
stands out even more. Authenticity builds on trust and
brand familiarity, but it’s not just about them, notes
John Bricker. “Authenticity adds value because it gives
the user an emotional connection to a brand—not just
a monetary one.”
What grabs people is the intuitive feeling that they’ve
discovered the real deal—a place, product, event, or
activity that resonates emotionally. Bricker points to
The Milford as an example. Gensler’s strategy and brand
concept for the renovation of the 25-story Manhattan
hotel reference the vibrant energy of New York City
itself—the people and the places. Photos and images in
The Milford’s corridors invoke SoHo, Greenwich Village,
Chinatown, the Lower East Side, and other neighborhoods.
The website and hotel graphics riff on the subway.
“Connecting visually to Manhattan reminds the guests
where they are,” Bricker says.
above:
The Milford’s website and graphics reinforce the
Manhattan theme of the hotel’s renovation.
opposite, clockwise from top left:
Grand Skylight Hotel, Kunshan, CN; Fairmont Hotel,
3PNC Plaza, Pittsburgh; Dior pop-up store,
New York City; North Face store, Indianapolis.
6
Gensler designed everything at The Milford to convey a
sense of place. Strategy sessions with the client cooked
up the idea of a food truck parked on the street as a way
to connect the hotel to a larger audience. “We’re always
looking for new ways to engage customers and create a
unique experience for them,” says Bricker. A food truck
provides the same immediacy for The Milford as pop-up
stores and flexible event spaces do for retailers.
At a time when the speed of digital technologies is
eclipsing what can be done with bricks and mortar, Jon
Tollit believes that flexibility is as important to the overall
scheme as the brand itself. “Leisure settings need to be
very fluid,” he explains. “It’s important to stay open and
be as fleet of foot as you can to deliver what customers
require. You don’t want to lock yourself into something
that will quickly go out of date.” Tollit sees the rise of
interactive design and the use of handheld devices and
customized digital interfaces as a means to enrich
and enhance leisure activities.
dialogue 20 I Leisure
7

8
Leisure’s new urbanity
One of the most dynamic changes in leisure is that cities
are providing the model for mixed-use development. The
pulsing energy of urban life and the potential crosscurrents
of retail, hospitality, and large-scale events make
for exciting interactions. The resulting projects attract
a range of activities that spark life in the urban realm.
In Los Angeles, for example, AEG’s L.A. LIVE engages
the downtown neighborhoods around its event spaces
to anchor a vibrant 24/7 district.
“Since STAPLES Center was built more than a decade
ago, almost 30,000 people have moved downtown and
lots of housing has been built,” explains Ron Turner.
“Creating L.A. LIVE as a district was really important. If
you just build an arena, you won’t garner the benefits
it can generate.” Fostering interactions between leisure
activities means that fans coming to the arena can
shop and dine before the game and convention center
visitors can take in an outdoor concert that’s in short
walking distance. Adding geo-locative or multiplatform
branding designed for handheld devices and the iPad
further enriches those experiences.
The rapid growth of urban centers in China and Korea
has changed the shopping mall paradigm. “One of the
big opportunities there is to develop strategies that
transform retail centers into a community place, whether
it’s anchored by entertainment or by programmed
events,” says Duncan Paterson. Pointing to projects like
the redevelopment of Seoul’s COEX retail center, he
sees East Asia’s example as a model for US malls. “They
can become mixed-use destinations, with new uses
beyond retail and entertainment that enable them to be
hubs for their communities.”
“In East Asia, the urban core is the place to be, not just
the place to shop,” Bricker says. “So retail there often
serves as gathering places.” Take the new KFC in Shibuya,
Tokyo’s hip retail district. It’s the perfect place to create
an intersection between a global brand and a unique
local context. Blending those elements together,
Gensler made a more urban and social KFC. Generous
seating encourages young women, the predominant
demographic in Shibuya, to hang out in the space. It gives
them a comfortable, almost domestic setting in the
midst of the district’s hubbub—a new role for KFC that
gives the fast food brand a community presence.
As this suggests, people’s intersections with each other
and with place and technology are a big part of the
convergence that’s reshaping the leisure sector. At every
price point, the future is about enriching people’s lives in
the midst of their crowded days. “Put unlikely pairings
together and sparks happen,” says Dian Duvall. “People
are one of the unexpected elements that make for
authenticity—the real experiences that build a sense of
community.” So even as leisure takes social media and
other developments into full account, it still sets the
stage for face to face.
Mimi Zeiger, editor of loud paper, writes for Wallpaper,
the New York Times, and Architect.
opposite:
The transformed retail center at COEX in Seoul will turn
the superblock into a 24/7 urban destination.
below:
A new KFC in Tokyo’s Shibuya, designed for socializing.
dialogue 20 I Leisure
9

SPORTS &
THE CITY By Kevin CraFt
The next generation of sports
venues is an integral part of the
urban scene. That’s changing
how they serve cities, sponsors,
owners, teams, and fans.
10
below:
Watching the game at Farmers Field, AEG’s
100 percent privately financed sports and events
venue at L.A. LIVE in downtown Los Angeles.
right:
The Villeurbanne Arena, Lyon, FR.
ART OF THE DEAL
$700m
AEG’s deal for the Farmers Field naming rights
set a new record in North America.
Sports venues are in flux. The costs of building and
operating them have shot up while the public’s appetite
for funding them with tax revenues has zeroed out.
That’s changing the game for sports franchises. Yet
cost is not the only driver, says Gensler’s Ron Turner.
“Sports venues today are focused on hospitality. They
contain more clubs, food-and-beverage options, and
retail offerings—and give fans more access to information
about the game—than ever before.”
Sports venues are also focused on the city. Today’s
stadiums and arenas are much more likely to be located
in transit-friendly urban sports/entertainment districts
than in peripheral one-use sites. They can host events
beyond sports, building creatively on their associations
with sponsor brands. Their synergy with the adjoining
district generates new revenue streams for both. This is
a paradigm shift for the industry, turning sports venues
into all-purpose entertainment centers.
dialogue 20 I Leisure
11

Sports venues have upped the ante dramatically in
their ability to let fans customize the experience.
it’s about the fans
“We’ve seen so much competition for the fans’ attention
that it is forcing stadiums and brands to be much
more aware of what the fans want,” says Robert Jordan,
a managing partner at Venue Research and Design.
Sports franchises have upped the ante dramatically on
the fan experience.
Sports venues used to be designed around a single
concourse that gave fans access to their seats and housed
generic concession offerings. Once the fans are inside
the gates, they’re engaged at their preferred price points.
The newest venues provide multiple concourses and
several different levels. Depending on the price of their
ticket, fans can watch events from regular seats, suites, or
luxury boxes. While hot dogs and beer are still standard
fare, they are now complemented by upscale options,
ranging up to gourmet standards. “Fans expect a variety
of choices and the possibility of high-level cuisine,”
says Turner.
12
At a Gensler-hosted roundtable of sports industry
professionals, panelists discussed how venues are evolving
to provide more flexible fan experiences. Panelists
noted that many recently constructed stadiums and
arenas include bars and upscale dining facilities that
overlook the playing surface and come equipped with
HD televisions and video monitors. “People want to be
in more intimate settings and feel special,” says Turner,
who notes that many of the bars and lounges are
branded and the sponsors play a critical role in creating
them. They let fans tailor their experience as much as
possible. “A smart stadium lets the fans interact with
the event when and where they want,” adds Jordan.
Luxury boxes, club levels, and bars and lounges may
separate fans from each other, but technology is now
the shared factor in the fan experience. Internet access
via Wi-Fi and mobile devices gives all fans access to
the same information and lets them choose to receive
game-related content from venues and sponsors.
above:
Wi-Fi is universally available now in pro-sports venues.
below:
Farmers Field relates to the L.A. Convention Center and
L.A. LIVE, giving all three added synergy and revenues.
COLLEgES AnD
unIvERSITIES
Colleges and universities are also rethinking the fan
experience and the role that sports facilities play
in improving student life and attracting coveted
donations from alumni and others. Gensler renovated
George Washington University’s Charles E. Smith
Center with the aim of creating a flexible venue that
can house student athletics, host events ranging from
intramural competitions to graduations, and be a
place where faculty can welcome visitors, alumni,
and donors and potential donors alike.
Gensler’s design touched every aspect of the arena,
including the exterior walls, an indoor swimming
facility, and a student-athlete academic center. One
of the more innovative features of the project is a
new courtside luxury section, the Colonials Club.
Members can watch games in a comfortable, wellfurbished
environment separated from the court by
a glass partition. The Colonials Club has continued to
grow in popularity since it opened two years ago.
The goal is to strike the right balance, says Shervin
Mirhashemi, chief operating officer at AEG Global
Partnerships. “You want fans to experience technology
in a way that enhances what’s happening on-field, but
doesn’t dominate it.”
Part of a bigger mix
Placing new sports venues within urban mixed-use
districts is a trend that began in the 1990s but is much
more prevalent today. Being located amid a range of
complementary uses lets the franchises take advantage
of what Turner calls the “beyond-the-gates” opportunities
to extend the team and sponsor brands into the larger
area and reinforce their visibility in the city and region.
A prime example is L.A. LIVE in downtown Los Angeles.
Developer AEG is proposing to crown the sportsentertainment
district with Farmers Field, a new stadium
and events center designed by Gensler. The sheer range
of attractions that L.A. LIVE already offers makes it an
ideal location for a second professional sports venue. The
football fans that come to Farmers Field will associate
the team, stadium, and sponsor with L.A. LIVE itself.
Integrating Farmers Field with the nearby Los Angeles
Convention Center will give them both the ability to
compete successfully with other cities for larger events.
“These are lucrative markets that will increase Farmers
Field’s value,” says Gensler’s Jonathan Emmett. “It’s not a
stand-alone facility, but a multipurpose events center in
the heart of the city—a venue that’s large, flexible, and
amenity-rich enough to attract the big conventions
and world-class sports events like the Super Bowl and
the World Cup.”
Locating sports venues in mixed-use districts is also
a trend outside the US. In Shenbei, a new district of
Shenyang, China, Gensler is designing an 18,000-seat
basketball arena to National Basketball Association
(NBA) specifications. The arena will be a key component
of a sports and entertainment center that pairs it with a
hotel, events plaza, food and retail offerings, and a sports
training facility. “It will be the focal point of a unified
civic space,” Emmett says. Sports leagues outside the
US often play fewer games or matches per year, making a
mixed-use location especially appealing. In Lyon, France,
Gensler is designing the 13,000-seat multipurpose indoor
Villeurbanne Arena with an adjoining programmable
public plaza. “From a revenue standpoint, the beyondthe-gates
opportunities of the plaza are as big or bigger
than those of the arena,” Turner explains. The hospitality
will have a unique regional theme. To appeal to the
sports-conscious French, a new Tony Parker Basketball
Academy will add sophisticated athletic training facilities
to the mix—all designed to make the new arena and plaza
a year-round draw.
raising the sponsor profile
To fund the construction and marketing of new sports
venues and districts, many franchises and developers
are turning to sponsors. “You don’t see public funding of
stadiums and arenas the way you used to,” says AEG’s
Mirhashemi. “Sponsors are ever more important.” AEG
and Farmers Insurance Group inked a $700 million
naming rights deal for Farmers Field in January 2011,
setting a new record for such deals in North America.
The agreement puts Farmers Insurance at the design
table, Mirhashemi explains. Working with Gensler’s
sports practice, the company can walk through the color
schemes, the branding initiatives, and the different
ways it will use the new stadium.
The Farmers Field naming deal is an example of a
current trend: sports franchises and venue operators are
working much harder—and more creatively—to integrate
their sponsor brands. According to Turner, advertising
above:
Watching the game is just one of the attractions
of the Colonials Club at George Washington
University’s Charles E. Smith Center.
and sponsorships are the two largest revenue components
for many venues. Sponsors looking for higher
returns on their investment aren’t content just to slap
advertisements on concourse walls, Jordan adds. “They
know that, to be successful, they have to interact with
fans and get that two-way conversation going.”
The new paradigm for sports venues places them in
a vibrant urban context to which they contribute. “That
has a huge bearing on how they are planned and
designed,” Turner says. “On the inside, these are exceptionally
complex buildings—technologically advanced,
highly flexible, and amazingly sophisticated in the range
of what they can offer fans beyond the attractions of
the games themselves.” Their events draw the crowds
and the mixed-use districts around them capture their
pre- and post-game revenues. The synergy between
those districts and their sports venues reinforces their
combined destination value. “The goal is to keep the
action going 24/7,” Turner says. “The old paradigm of
the stadium or arena in a sea of parking doesn’t work
anymore. The franchise can’t afford it and neither can
the city. They need each other.”
Kevin Craft is the Washington, DC–based editor of
GenslerOn (gensleron.com).
dialogue 20 I Leisure
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RETAIL AnD ITS
COMMunITIES
By CLare JaCoBson
Retail’s destination value is gaining a new currency
as people balance globalization with healthy doses
of local flavor.
From the agora to the arcade to the pop-up store,
retail has long been an integral part of public life. While
its form has changed over time, its importance as a
community center remains. Recent events—including
the rise of Web 2.0 connectivity, the steady growth of
online shopping, and the ups and downs of the global
economy—seem to suggest the demise of the brickand-mortar
retail that has been so essential to creating
places. And yet despite these trends, and often in direct
response to them, retail is constantly inventing new ways
to become a real destination.
“Retail place making is about creating a context for all
the different kinds of experiences that resonate with
people as social creatures,” says Gensler’s Maureen Boyer.
“As designers, we have to consider all the aspects—the
architecture, the lighting, the signage and graphics, how
the retail setting relates and shapes the world outside,
and how it supports people and events.”
Creating a sense of community is equally important
for large retail centers and for individual shops. “Place
making today is all about the culture that comes along
with the physical location. That’s really what’s driving
people into stores,” Irwin Miller believes. Making the
sale has as much to do with how the store engages the
customer as the appeal of the products on the shelves.
targeting local consumers
Increasingly, retail culture is being rooted in specific
places. Some of the biggest retailers, like café chains,
have changed their approach to delivering a unified
14
experience, says Barry Bourbon. “They’re much more
focused on making the setting appropriate for the
culture and the expectations of their customers,” he
explains. The result is a move away from sameness
across the retail landscape. As Michael Bodziner notes,
“People are asking why they would want to go into
a store whose environment and experience is exactly
the same in New York City as it is in Atlanta.” In its
recent work for The North Face, Gensler mixed “global”
elements, shared by all the stores, with others that
reinforce local connections—camping information, for
example, and three-dimensional icons that reflect the
topography of the city and its region.
Developing locally aware retail involves both aesthetic
decisions and cultural considerations. In Turkey, for
example, menswear is located next to the perfume
department, as menswear is typically bought by women.
In China, the importance of food, the focus on luxury
brands, and the preference for gift giving rather than
impulse buying all affect the way retail settings are
designed. Japan, on the other hand, “is daring and
provocative in retail place making, using elements of
whimsy, surprise, and delight to reinforce a location,”
Dian Duvall observes. “For global retailers especially, it’s
crucial to understand and respond to these differences.”
clockwise from top left:
Coffee Bean & Tea Leaf, Seoul; KFC, Tokyo; North Face
store, Indianapolis; the retail podium at Shanghai Tower.
dialogue 20 I Leisure
15

Gensler’s approach to designing for varied locales
starts with an analysis of the host city and a decoding
of the city in all aspects, from culture to architecture,
says David Glover. “We take that analysis and recode
it into a visual language that’s suited to the place—so
tied to it that what you design really couldn’t be done
anywhere else.”
Having up-to-date analyses is especially important in
the rapidly changing world of retail in developing
countries. As Tim Etherington notes, India and China
still have a very strong idea that value is purely based
on price, while the West sees value in terms of price,
quality, and convenience. This is beginning to change
as more Chinese shoppers make trips to Hong Kong,
where they are exposed to a high level of service that
raises their expectations back on the mainland.
above, from top:
GM showroom, Seoul; the plaza at the
Ritz-Carlton and JW Marriott Tower,
L.A. LIVE, Los Angeles.
opposite:
The community room at the REI store,
Round Rock, TX.
16
Putting retail in the mix
In China and in the West, retail is increasingly an element
of mixed-use districts rather than purely a staple of
retail centers and malls. In China, the population density
and the traditional intermixing of everything from
groceries to bookstores to hair salons have made mixed
use the obvious model for retailers and the developers
that cater to them. This is an emerging trend in the
US, says Marty Borko. While some of these districts are
sports-anchored, others base their appeal on a combination
of entertainment, hospitality, and retail. Food and
beverage plays a bigger role now, he notes. “The urbanity
of these districts attracts a broader range of offerings.”
Adding mixed-use components to retail is also helping to
revive struggling suburban malls. One of the latest
examples for Gensler is an outdated 1970s-era mall in
Southern California. The owners are eager to explore not
only how to rework the mall, but how to integrate it better
into the community. “In the end, it all goes back to
customer experience,” Borko explains. “How do you turn
the mall into a great place that people will see and
return to as an important local and regional destination?”
Making room for new uses
Mixed use is also about generating a 24/7 level of activity,
and retail is falling in with that. “What we’re seeing is
that clients want multifunctional settings they can curate
themselves,” says Owain Roberts. “A retail space today
may also function as a gallery and live music venue.” This
also reflects the pop-up store phenomenon, Michael
Gatti believes. “The pop-up is a testing ground. It’s a more
cost-effective way for retailers to try something new
than building a real store.” While there is disagreement
on whether pop-ups are a passing fad or here to stay,
their effect on brick-and-mortar stores is indisputable.
Some retailers opt for pop-up-like installations in their
existing stores, with guest artists and temporary fixtures.
Retail place making is about creating a context for all
the different kinds of experiences that resonate with
people as social creatures.
Others use pop-ups to fill empty slots in retail centers.
And some malls are functioning as galleries of shops
that change out every month or two.
Catering to informed shoppers
Flexible retail space lets retailers move quickly to
capitalize on changing technologies. While online
shopping has failed to bring the predicted demise of
traditional retail, smart phones and Web 2.0 make
it easier for shoppers to be better informed. Smart
retailers are acknowledging and embracing this.
Retailers are also using in-store technology to expand
the customer experience. Cisco has developed a mirror
that shoppers can touch to send images of themselves
to their friends. Clothing stores are using interactive
environments for kids to play DJ or dress up in virtual
outfits. But most retail technology stays in customers’
cell phones or PDAs, because developers and landlords
shy away from heavy investments in digital infrastructure.
“They’re wary of the costs and the potential for it to
go quickly out of date,” Glover says.
Concerned shoppers mean greener retail
Today’s widespread concern for sustainability is impacting
retail. The increasing quantity and variety of sustainable
materials make going green easier. But green products
are just the beginning of the solution; sustainable retail
includes initiatives like recycling, managing time-of-day
opening, locating near mass transit, and planning retail as
urban infill. Not every retailer opts for LEED certification
or its international equivalents, but it’s becoming more
common, Bourbon says. “For brands like REI, LEEDcertified
stores reflect the DNA of their branding. Their
customers expect it,” says Bourbon. That expectation is
playing out with auto dealerships, too, Kyle Davis adds.
“We did the first US LEED-certified dealership in 2006.
Today, with all the hybrid cars, a lot more dealers are
signing up.”
Health and wellness are lifestyle attributes that matter to
a growing number of people—one of the threads that
run through retail in many different locations. “That’s
because retail is so much a part of everyday life,” says
Boyer. “To connect with their customers, it has to reflect
their values.” For retail’s settings to have an impact,
“designers have to pay close attention to everything that
consumers find meaningful,” Miller adds. “When place
is a differentiator for a retailer, the customers come to
feel that it’s part of who they are.”
Clare Jacobson has written for Architectural Record
and Engineering News-Record. She is based in Shanghai.
17

THE nEw AnD
THE REnEwED
By vernon Mays
As the economy goes, so goes hospitality. After
suffering through a global recession, the industry
is bouncing back. Vital metrics like average daily
rate, occupancy, and revenue per available room
are on the rise.
below:
The entry of The Ritz-Carlton, Dubai
International Financial Centre.
opposite:
The lobby wine bar at the Fairmont Hotel,
3PNC Plaza, Pittsburgh.
18
Hospitality is on the rebound. Hotel brands are expanding
in domestic and international markets, and older
properties in many cities are being refreshed. “People
are starting to travel more, so demand is coming back,”
says Tom Ito. It’s not true in every market, he cautions,
but in a growing number of cities, “both supply and
demand are on the rise, which is great for the industry.”
Nowhere are the opportunities richer than in the
booming regions of Asia—China, in particular. Several
trends are happening at once, with implications for
hotel development at all price points, says Alton Chow.
At the top end, for example, luxury brands are saturating
the major cities, with operators looking to develop
super-luxury hotels that surpass the quality and amenities
of the accepted five-star system. “Cities are essentially
filling up with every possible high-end brand,” he says.
One approach is to build on the reputation of existing
luxury brands, such as the Waldorf Astoria, which has
franchised in Shanghai. Other companies, like Hilton
and InterContinental, are developing higher-end brands
for the Chinese market. Chinese hotel brands are following
suit. Jin Jiang Group, for example, just announced
that it will introduce a new luxury hotel in Gensler’s
121-story Shanghai Tower.
dialogue 20 I Leisure
19

Developers are investing. US brands are expanding
in international markets. And older properties are
being refreshed for the next wave of travelers.
With the Chinese market brimming with high-end hotels,
international operators in China are turning their
attention to three-star and four-star brands. “The fourstar
brand is easier to run, with lower overhead, and
it’s quite profitable,” says Chow. To help them tap the
market, Gensler is developing concepts for global hotel
brands tailored to the needs of Chinese travelers.
China is seeing the rise of the homegrown mid-level
hotel, too. Gensler has been working with a Chinese
economy brand, Home Inn, to create a more upscale
three-star brand called Yitel. With plans to roll out
200 hotels in five years, the company called on Gensler
to develop the branding for the hotel and its interior
design standards. “We wanted to create something both
Asian and international. It was important to help the
client’s team pinpoint what Yitel is to them,” Chow says.
In a separate assignment, Home Inn has asked Gensler
to rebrand its established economy hotels with a new
logo and refreshed design.
20
Higher expectations
Although the pace of investment in the Middle East
was slowed by the economic downturn, major hotel
projects continue to move forward in locations such
as Abu Dhabi, Dubai, and Riyadh. As hotel brands are
exported from their home bases in the US and the UK,
a kind of multiplier effect takes place, says José Sirera.
“Brands that are three- or four-star hotels in their home
countries are often recast as five-star hotels in the
Middle East, because of the size of the guest rooms and
client expectations.” Gensler’s current work on the
Hotel Indigo is a good example. A three-star product in
the US, it’s going to be a five-star offering in Riyadh.
European vacationers have made Dubai a fun-in-the-sun
capital, but business travel is equally robust there.
Cities like Abu Dhabi and Riyadh, where Gensler is now
at work on a new InterContinental Hotel, attract a large
business clientele. Dubai is an important business
destination, as well, with the progressing build-out of
above:
Graphics for the Yitel three-star hotel brand.
below, clockwise from left:
Kimpton Hotel Palomar Philadelphia; JW Marriott Hotel
lobby at L.A. LIVE; Fairmont Hotel, Pittsburgh.
opposite:
The Larcomar mixed-use center, Lima, PE.
the Dubai International Financial Centre, a 121-acre
free-trade zone masterplanned by Gensler as a walkable
district. The Ritz-Carlton, Dubai International Financial
Centre hotel is also designed for walkability. A planned
retail spine will link it to the financial center’s centerpiece,
The Gate. Hotels in such locales play an important role
from an urban design perspective, Sirera notes. “They
function like the public squares of the financial district,
because they contain the public spaces, retail shops,
and restaurants.”
anchoring mixed use
Increasingly, hotels share the role of anchor in new
mixed-use centers or as a vital element in creating
new chemistry in aging retail developments, including
suburban malls. Gensler’s JW Marriott and Ritz-Carlton
tower at L.A. LIVE has helped bring nightlife back to the
city’s downtown. Urban-scale mixed-use development
is already the norm in many Asian cities, where highdensity
development has occurred for generations.
Shanghai Tower, which mixes hotel, office, conference,
and retail uses in a single sustainable highrise, is just
one example. Gensler also is currently updating part of
the superblock COEX complex in Seoul, Korea, which
includes hotel, convention, retail, and office uses.
Now mixed use is taking off in South America. On the
coast of Lima, Peru, Gensler is repositioning and expanding
Larcomar, an established retail center on a dramatic
bluff site overlooking the Pacific. It will add a 300-room,
five-star hotel to the fully upgraded property to create
an integrated shopping, entertainment, and high-end
dining destination. Says Ito, “Larcomar embodies the
new Peruvian way. It’s not redevelopment in the classic
sense. It’s about enhancing our client’s property to
maximize the value of an existing asset.”
a boon to urban centers
Urban centers are reaping the benefits of hotel projects,
which in some cities have been drivers of economic
development and civic improvement. In the heart of
Santiago, Chile, Gensler is adding hotels, office buildings,
and new retail to Parque Arauco, a dated shopping mall.
Rather than simply refresh the existing mall, Gensler
advised the client to broaden its reach by establishing a
new district to make Parque Arauco a destination for the
entire community. Hotels are a key part of the new mix.
Another prime example of hotel-as-economic engine is
Pittsburgh’s Fairmont Hotel. “This is a transformational
project,” says Doug Gensler. “To fulfill its vision of how
to reinvigorate the city’s struggling downtown, PNC
partnered with Fairmont to create a world-class hotel.”
It is the centerpiece of the 23-story, 750,000-squarefoot
PNC Plaza, which also has offices, condominiums,
and ground-floor retail. The new hotel has helped to
revive Pittsburgh’s urban core by spurring additional
redevelopment projects downtown.
Building on history
Hoteliers are recasting historic buildings as stylish new
hotels. Kimpton, for example, converted the art deco
Architects Building, a 26-story office building, into the
Hotel Palomar Philadelphia. Chosen for its prime location
near Rittenhouse Square, the building’s small footprint
limited the number of guest rooms per floor. The design
team solved the jigsaw puzzle of the floor plan, delivering
the 230 guest rooms that Kimpton needed to satisfy
the pro forma and seal the deal.
Kimpton also asked Gensler to lead the adaptive reuse
of the 1907 Lafayette Building as the four-star Hotel
Monaco Philadelphia. The beaux arts building, well
located near Independence Hall, is subject to intense
preservation review. “As with the Hotel Palomar, we
have to reconcile the claims of history with the desires
of today’s hotel clientele,” says Jack Paruta.
The allure of historic properties is not confined to the US
east coast. Gensler recently renovated the venerable
El Encanto Hotel in Santa Barbara, California, a 93-yearold
campus of bungalow-style guest rooms and suites
that was upgraded into a five-star hotel. In Phoenix, the
firm completed a new restaurant in the landmark Arizona
Biltmore, and has finished a master plan calling for a
new spa and two wings that respect the original Frank
Lloyd Wright–influenced hotel.
the need to renew
Long-established hotels are reexamining their brand,
seeking ways to provide continued value to their
customers while making strategic improvements that
add more comfort and style—or just a new attitude.
“There is such competitiveness that a lot of brands are
upgrading,” says Barbara Best-Santos, who worked
with Marriott on a new prototype for Residence Inn.
“Consumers are intent on getting the best experience
for the money, and that’s driving a lot of guest choices.
Hotels that recognize this can grow their business.”
In the near future, many hotels will be hurrying to
complete the property improvements required to maintain
their flag. Pent-up demand for this work is the result
of deferrals granted to hotel owners during the cashstrapped
days of the recession, when maintenance was
put off. “Properties that were in bad shape before are
in worse shape now,” says Nancy Nodler.
Consumer preference also has given hotel owners a new
incentive to embrace sustainable design. A trend that
caught on slowly in the hospitality industry, it’s quickly
becoming an industry standard, with many brands
working sustainability into their base requirements.
Gensler has worked closely with Wyndham Hotels, for
example, to craft sustainability standards that range
from operations practices such as recycling and energy
use to selection of green materials and furnishings.
Staying competitive in a recovering market is an equally
compelling reason to reinvest. And the signs indicate
that reinvestment will continue in a big way this year.
Looking at its own portfolio of hotel brands and REITs,
Bank of America Merrill Lynch analysts see capital
expenditures rising by 76 percent in 2011. That spending
level, $2.1 billion, is only 13 percent below 2007’s peak.
If that’s not a cause for optimism, what is?
vernon Mays is an editor-at-large at Architect magazine
and a senior editor at Gensler.
dialogue 20 I Leisure
21

CONVERSATION
CEnTERS OF
EXPERIEnCE
Tim Leiweke is president and CEO
of AEG, a global presenter of sports
and entertainment programming.
As the visionary behind STAPLES
Center and L.A. LIVE, the sports and
entertainment district in downtown
Los Angeles, he’s now focused on
Farmers Field and the Los Angeles
Convention Center modernization.
above:
AEG’s L.A. LIVE has transformed downtown
Los Angeles into a 24/7 destination.
opposite:
The lobby at the JW Marriott at L.A. LIVE has
become a hugely popular social hub.
By Sam LuBeLL
TIM
LEIwEkE
22
What do you see as aeg’s role in downtown
Los angeles?
tim Leiweke: Where else do you get the chance to take the second
largest metropolis in the United States and turn it into a real urban city?
Los Angeles has never been able to achieve that. Instead, we have
many communities that exist by themselves. So the challenge downtown
is that it’s always been a collection of disconnected districts. There’s
never been an overall vision. We’ve always struggled to figure out what
we want our downtown to be. But AEG has a pretty good handle on
how to connect all of this together and create an image, a theme, and a
place. When it comes to events, nightlife, conventions, trade shows, and
public celebrations—that’s our role to play. We have a lot of work to do,
but we can make this one of the great urban cores in the world.
How do neighborhood-building and urban
transformation fit into aeg’s strategy?
tL: I think downtown has to be like a good stew. A lot has to go into it
to make people hungry and want to taste it. So we need to do better
on transportation. We need to do a better job with public space and
parks. Gensler is helping us take our thinking and reach out to others
to make connections. The challenge for LA is that to become a great
destination for tourism and conventions, we have to make people feel
comfortable here.
When we started building STAPLES Center, less than 5,000 people lived
in downtown LA. We had few hotel rooms, and our convention center
was surrounded by neighborhoods that people felt uncomfortable
walking through. Things have changed. Almost 50,000 people will live
in downtown Los Angeles within the next couple of years. The next step
is: How do we capture tourists and events and conventions? Certainly
building Farmers Field and fixing the convention center are going to
be big deals. But so are the parks, the public spaces, and the avenues
that we have to create for pedestrians and for bikes, streetcars, and
buses. It’s about to turn now. And it’s not just an interest in residential
development. We’re being approached by retailers, hotels, nightlife,
services, and schools—and with ideas for parks and green space.
is fixing the Los angeles Convention Center
contingent on building the stadium?
tL: Everyone says that we want the city to float the bonds for the
Los Angeles Convention Center so we can build the stadium. It’s
the opposite. We want to build the stadium and use the winds of that
economic sail to fix the convention center. So the convention center
only gets fixed if the land lease, the property tax, and other predictable
revenue streams from the stadium are there to pay for the convention
center’s bonds. Convention centers don’t make money on their own.
It’s the hotel rooms that they create and fill, and the room taxes, sales
taxes, vehicle taxes, airline taxes, and property taxes that they generate
that go to city hall to pay for police, fire, and other public services.
What are your immediate plans—including the
prospects for Farmers Field?
tL: AEG Chairman Philip Anschutz feels comfortable that this is not
only the right place for the stadium, but the right time to bring the NFL
to Los Angeles. We’re optimistic, but we don’t control it completely.
Some of that control rests with the NFL, some with finding a team, and
some with the city. But, to me, fixing Los Angeles Convention Center
is the heart of this deal. It changes the dynamics of this city forever.
San Diego and San Antonio have built an entire industry from their
convention business. They’re all about tourism and conventions. Need
I mention Las Vegas?
But look at Los Angeles—arguably one of the most famous cities on
earth. Because of Hollywood, we’re the city that creates what people
listen to and watch. We set their style. And yet you look at our ability
to recapture the economic juggernaut that these other cities have
captured with tourism and conventions and we haven’t done it. Tourism
and conventions require planning, infrastructure, and work. The reason
San Diego is successful is that they’ve really worked at it. They’ve built a
magnificent convention center and added hotels and an entertainment
district that feed into that experience. That’s our future. That represents
the city’s highest potential growth in jobs, taxes, and new revenue. The
new convention center will transform downtown Los Angeles.
your goal is to maximize customer experience.
But do you sometimes have to balance impact
with practical needs?
tL: The battle is that people like me are forced to focus on budgets and
on spending the money where we make the money, while others want
to create iconic designs. The balance I’m interested in is to bring it in on
time and on budget, and spend money where it generates revenues.
I’m not as hung up on what it looks like. That’s why we find architects
that can help us make our buildings both functional and beautiful.
For instance, L.A. LIVE’s 54-story JW Marriott and Ritz-Carlton hotel
and residential tower is successful because of a combination of its
unique design and functionality. People are impressed by the look
of the building, the feel of the building, the comfort of the building.
When people walk into the lobby, they’re blown away. Farmers Field is
going to be the same way. Gensler’s role as the architect is not only
to help us make it fully operational, but to make it iconic, as well.
sam Lubell edits The Architect’s Newspaper in California.
dialogue 20 I Leisure
23

CONVERSATION
PACO
unDERHILL
By MiMi Zeiger
24
Paco Underhill, the renowned
“shopping anthropologist,” is the
president of Envirosell, a New York
City–based behavioral research
and consulting firm focused on
retail environments. Now a classic,
his 1999 book, Why We Buy: The
Science of Shopping, put people at
the center of retail design.
right:
Shanghai’s Nanjing Road.
What are the most unexpected changes you’ve
seen in retail since you published Why We Buy?
Paco Underhill: Stores are the dipstick of social change. So, if we think
about what made a good store in 1990 and what does so now, there
are fundamental differences. The power of the Web-enabled mobile
phone has taken most merchants and marketers by complete surprise.
That means companies are designing in silos. One part of the company,
the dot-com side, might be based in San Francisco, while the bricks
and mortar side is based somewhere else. Yet, as far as the consumer is
concerned, they’re all one entity. What we’re seeing is that customers
are looking for an integrated, multichannel platform. Their ability to
access information is four or five steps ahead of the physical design.
How can retail designers and strategists keep up?
PU: One way is by recognizing that the tactile, three-dimensional
world still has power. The success of pop-up stores and place-making
experiences tells us that having a place for the customer to physically
interact with a brand is an extremely powerful marketing tool. We’re
seeing dollars pulled out of print media and put into bricks and mortar
as a way to have better interaction with customers.
Bricks and mortar allow us to reinvent something that was an important
part of the retail landscape 40 years ago—the catalog showroom. For
example, there’s a place at the Time Warner Center in New York called
an “interactive brand emporium,” where you can view products by
a single electronics manufacturer. Nobody’s trying to sell you their
products. They just explain how they work and their potential impact
on your life. Another brand I’m thinking of has a store with items for
sale, sure, but more than anything there’s an attitude on display. If you
buy into that attitude, maybe you’ll buy the product. More importantly,
they have a magazine you might subscribe to, as well.
your research has roots in urban studies. Do you
see parallels between retail and urban settings?
PU: One thing that fascinates us is the number of times we have been
pulled into a non-retail setting, where the client says, “Can you come
help me? I run the Phoenix Zoo.” Or, “The entrancing sequence to the
Metropolitan Museum here in New York City is very clumsy. We know
that a high percentage of people who get to our Great Hall never walk
into our museum. Can you help us out?” Lots of things that we learn
from retail are eminently applicable in other settings. We draw on retail
principles in order to bring a more systemized approach to the threedimensional
brand experience.
How do you break down the retail experience?
What part is product? space? technology?
PU: What we call “giving good store” is the interrelationship between
the physical design, the merchandizing and product mix, and the
operating culture. One irony of 21st-century design culture is that often
the easiest thing to change is the physical design. The hardest thing is
to correlate changes in the physical design with changes in the operating
culture. A progressive merchant tries continually to fine-tune all of
the assumptions. One of our jobs as a research and consulting firm is
to see if we can get all of the constituent parts of a client organization
on the same bus, so that everyone agrees where they’re going.
What should clients and designers be aware of
when working across markets and cultures?
PU: Let’s look at it two ways. First, there are a series of biological
constants, which work whether we’re in São Paulo, Shanghai, or San
Diego. People are all of a certain height, so while they may be slightly
taller in Oslo than they are in Lisbon, the basic concept of ergonomics
applies. Our eyes all age in the same way, so if I look at the issues of
visual acuity, they are largely universal across all markets.
Other things are different—like topography, security, distribution of
wealth, and culture. We are affected by density. So if I’m planning for
Tokyo or for Dallas, there are radical differences between the two. In
the US, while there’s a difference between a bus driver and a dot-com
billionaire, the relative difference is not as extreme as it might be
between social classes in Brazil or India or China.
There’s another dimension that deals with the export of retail or the
export of design. Many countries have identifiable centers. Britain has
a center, which is London. Japan has a center, which is Tokyo. But look
at a country like Italy—it has no center. Spain has no center. Even the
US has no center. In general, I believe it has been easier for companies
based in locations without centers to export retail, because they enter
new markets with some sensitivity to the fact that things might change.
They are more flexible. One of the issues we work on is how to get
our global clients to recognize that they have to hold onto their global
identities, but at the same time be very careful about executing locally.
Do shoppers have a voice in these decisions?
PU: From the standpoint of the research world, shoppers want to be
asked questions and see how their answers relate to everybody
else’s. Retailers should remember that we live in an overstored world.
Shoppers often vote with their feet, meaning they walk in and they
walk out, and they don’t come back. For those of us in North America,
our merchant empires have to be focused on reinvention, because if
it doesn’t happen constantly, you’re likely to be left behind.
Mimi Zeiger, editor of loud paper, writes for Wallpaper, the New York
Times, and Architect.
dialogue 20 I Leisure
25

CASE STUDY
HOw SFO’S T2
REvOLuTIOnIzED
AIR TRAvEL
By aLLison arieFF
Renewing San Francisco International Airport’s
Terminal 2 gave it a local flavor and reset the
expectations of a weary—and wary—flying public.
Few who fly would disagree that the experience of
air travel from check-in to landing can make you feel
that everyone involved has simply given up. You can
see it in people’s faces: shoulders rise, teeth clench,
expressions grow steely, and civility erodes. With
Gensler’s redesign of Terminal 2 (T2), San Francisco
International Airport (SFO) has changed the game.
T2’s sense of place is distinctively San Franciscan. Gone
is the deadening homogeneity that makes arriving
in one city indiscernible from the last. Travelers at T2
can see the bay and hills through generous windows
and skylights, and they can also experience the work
of local artists and the food produced by local organic
farmers. The art reflects an ongoing partnership with
the San Francisco Arts Commission that’s made SFO
an accredited museum—a first for a US airport. The
region’s farms, vineyards, and outdoor markets inspired
the curated concessions. “We gave travelers a local
flavor,” says Art Gensler. “That’s what a city’s gateway
is all about.”
COMFORT AnD COnTROL SuSTAInABLE LIkE SF DELIgHT BRIDgE TO THE BAY
26
the importance of design
The success of T2 is in the details, large and small, that
add up to a memorable setting. As San Francisco Mayor
Ed Lee put it, “We felt like we’d walked into a five-star
hotel.” If you’ve got your laptop, you’ll enjoy lounge- or
counter-seating with places to recharge—no need to
huddle near the power outlets. Parents will revel at the
inclusion of well-considered children’s play areas; like
the restaurants, cafés, and shops, they’re near the gates.
Intuitive wayfinding makes getting around easy. And
tourists and natives alike will appreciate the seamless way
the airport links by rail to their regional destinations.
“This is one of the few terminals in America where you
arrive and think it’s going to be a great day,” Virgin
America Chairman Sir Richard Branson said on opening
day. “T2 feels like the best of San Francisco,” adds
Gensler’s Steve Weindel. “The airport values design in
the same way the community does. They both have a
really strong point of view.”
8 LAnES gREEn! 5 STARS
gATEwAY
Faster security means less stress, then
you get to decompress!
• Security, as easy as it can be
• Then a place to recompose
• Next moves are clearly visible
t2’s sustainable commitment plays out
in small ways and large.
• Fill up your water bottle
• Learn green practices
• Bask in the LEED Gold
sF Mayor ed Lee: “We felt like we’d
walked into a five-star hotel.”
• Hospitality influence
• Bay Area food/drink
• Kids are in the picture
dialogue 20 I Leisure
sFo t2 is the Bay area’s warm welcome
and its fond farewell.
• World-class art
• Those bay views!
• Train into town
27

CASE STUDY
“This is San Francisco. It was natural for us
to take a very forward-looking approach to
Terminal 2’s design.”
28
Departure level plan
7
3
4
10
8
11
13
5
12
6
1
2
4
9
3
0 50 100 200 ft
1 Concessions & retail
2 Restrooms
3 Gate lounges
4 Ticketing/check-in
5 Museum displays
6 Security screening
7 Back of house
8 Airline club
9 Virgin America
10 American Airlines
11 Meet and greet
12 Recompose zone
13 Concessions court
renewing t2 for 21C
First built in 1952, then expanded by Gensler in 1981
as SFO’s first international terminal, T2 went out of
service in 2000, not long after a new international
terminal came online. So there was a lot of catching up
to do. Reinventing the 640,000-square-foot, 14-gate
terminal was the job of the design-build partnership
of Gensler and Turner Construction. When Gensler took
the measure of the existing building, it saw the potential
to develop a great open plan to serve the 3.2 million
passengers T2 is expected to serve in its first year. And
Turner saw a smooth road ahead for construction, since
the terminal was unhindered by existing operations.
At a time when people are spending far more time at
the airport, the first priority was to deliver a superb
experience—backed up by solid performance. Before
9/11, it was typical to arrive 30 minutes (or less)
before your flight left the gate. Today, “you need at
least twice that to make sure you get through security
in time,” says Gensler’s Bill Hooper. “Plus, you need
to grab food in the terminal, because many flights don’t
serve meals. You’re spending twice as much time past
security, so you need more amenities while you’re
there.” Pre-9/11 airports weren’t designed to provide
them. Even after 9/11, many of them were designed
to get people in and out as quickly as possible. “The
quality of the experience was often an afterthought.”
20%
Less energy is required to run T2’s innovative
displacement ventilation system, which also
improves air quality.
dialogue 20 I Leisure
29

CASE STUDY
taking the stress out
While most older terminals have made modifications to
address the changing realities of security checkpoints,
online check-ins, and orange alerts, these typically feel
like incomplete workarounds rather than integrated
solutions. And they do little to minimize traveler apprehension
or anxiety. “It’s the uncertainty of moving
through airports that stresses people out,” Hooper says.
“So we design them to be very easy to navigate and very
comfortable.” Adds Gensler’s Jeff Henry, “SFO pushed for
that, and American and Virgin America, the two airlines
involved, were fine with it. They know that things go
much better and faster when their passengers aren’t
stressed out.”
Security is a big part of this. Gensler completely
rethought the security area at T2, providing more points
of entry—a total of 8 passenger lanes—and clear
wayfinding. The result is a security-screening process
that is far more efficient than its older counterparts.
Pleasantly surprised by the speed and relative ease
of what they’ve just gone through, passengers find
themselves in the light- and art-filled recompose zone
just past security, a unique setting that offers them
a place to regroup. From there, they have a clear view
of flight information and the gates and food and retail
offerings in the concourse.
reflecting a city’s sensibility
People see airports as an extension of their cities. San
Francisco is made up of many diverse neighborhoods,
and the Gensler designers set out to replicate that
feeling within the terminal. Palettes, materials, and
30
spatial qualities shift subtly throughout, so that every
setting has a distinct personality. “Wherever you are in
T2, you experience the Bay Area culture,” says Gensler’s
Terence Young. “It’s not just on the surface,” he adds.
“Sustainability really matters to this community, so it had
a huge impact on the design. Because it’s such a public
building, T2 became a test case for us—can an airport
inspire people to live in a greener way?”
T2 is America’s first LEED Gold-registered airport. Even
for those who experience it all the time, the tangible,
day-to-day benefits of LEED are often hard to discern.
But T2 takes the LEED Gold designation beyond the LEED
checklist. To spark ideas about how people can live
sustainably while traveling and in everyday life, Gensler
developed graphics to explain how sustainable design
makes T2 healthy and high-performing.
sustainability is a constant
Innovative sustainable design and operations programs
at T2 cut energy and water use, while aggressive
recycling and composting help significantly reduce
the terminal’s waste generation and carbon footprint.
Gensler sought to make sustainability an integral part
of the travel experience. Hydration stations address
the wasteful problem of tossed half-full plastic water
bottles by providing a place to fill reusable ones. An
innovative displacement ventilation system improves
indoor air quality, using 20 percent less energy in the
process. Reusing a substantial portion of T2’s existing
infrastructure allowed the Gensler/Turner team to
shave costs and reduce T2’s carbon footprint by some
12,300 tons of carbon dioxide.
“This is San Francisco,” says Gensler’s Melissa Mizell.
“It was natural for us to take a very forward-looking
approach and incorporate that thinking in the way the
terminal is designed and operated.”
A major design element at T2 is that vastly underused
building material known as natural light. New skylights
and clerestories create a bright, healthy aesthetic,
even as they cut the terminal’s electric bill during the
daylight hours. The restrooms are equally efficient.
“They’re what you’d expect to find in a downtown San
Francisco hotel,” Mizell says. “At an airport, that quality
is a big and pleasant surprise.”
EnvIROnMEnTAL SuSTAInABILITY
1 667tons
Estimated annual reduction in greenhouse gas emissions attributable to T2’s different sustainable elements.
“Fun and enjoyment aren’t words that people normally
apply to airports,” says Jeff Henry. “At T2, we set out to
change that.” Virgin America, known for imbuing the
flight experience with sophisticated design details and
a wry sense of humor, was a perfect partner. So was
American Airlines, which embraced T2 as the harbinger
of a brighter future for air travel. Says Jesse McMillin,
Virgin America’s creative director, “We all went in with
the feeling that a big public project like T2, located in
San Francisco, begs to be revolutionary.” And so it is.
allison arieff, a former editor of Dwell, writes for Good
and the New York Times.
90% 1.4mil
The amount of recycling that T2 will achieve by
2020 to meet San Francisco’s mandate, which
is 75 percent today.
Gallons of jet fuel saved per year by T2’s supply
of 400 HZ power and pre-conditioned air to
planes at the gates.
dialogue 20 I Leisure
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+views
news
32
vERTICAL COMMunITY
EDEnS & AvAnT
COLuMBIA, SC
Edens & Avant opened its first shopping center in
1966. Today, it’s known for its vibrant mixed-use town
centers, each reflecting the area it serves. It takes
real teamwork to capture that local spirit and create
a mix of activities, uses, and retailers to match.
Incubating that innovation is what Edens & Avant’s
new headquarters is designed to do. Taking three
floors of the new Main + Gervais Office Building, it
features a mid-façade atrium. Working with the
architect, Gensler carved out this volume while the
tower was in design. The atrium and its terrace look
out at the historic South Carolina State House. The
middle floor is Edens & Avant’s social hub, encouraging
interaction and community. One of the company’s core
values is passion, which is celebrated in gallery-like
fashion by an installation of personal artifacts. Their
significance is explained in accompanying narratives
from the different members of the headquarters team.
dialogue 20 I Leisure
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NEWS + VIEWS
34
CEnTER FOR DAnCE
HOuSTOn BALLET
HOuSTOn, TX
Every great ballet company has a school, and every great
ballet school has a memorable building. With the opening
of its Center for Dance, Houston Ballet, one of the great
companies, fulfills its destiny. The largest professional
dance facility in the US, the 115,000-square-foot academy
comprises nine dance studios, a 200-seat dance laboratory,
and the offices and workshops of the ballet and
the school. Along with 375 current dance students, the
Center for Dance supports Houston Ballet’s remark able
community programs, which intend to double their impact
to reach 30,000 students by 2015. Despite its size, the
Center was completed ahead of schedule and 12 percent
under budget—definitely light on its feet.
The Center takes its design cues from the proscenium
stage. Viewed from outside, the building is like a lacquer
ed cabinet of wonders, opening to reveal the stacked,
double-height studios, each a picture of movement. The
warm reclaimed walnut paneling inside contrasts with
the polished dark granite of the building proper. From the
dancers’ perspective, the studios look out at the Buffalo
Bayou and the Houston Art District, connecting them
with their patron city. An open-air sky-bridge links the
Center for Dance to the Wortham Theatre Center where
the company performs, giving people on the street
glimpses of dancers going back and forth.
dialogue 20 I Leisure
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NEWS + VIEWS
36
A BAnD SHELL FOR
MYRIAD gARDEnS
OkLAHOMA CITY, Ok
What do band shell and roller coaster have to do with each
other? Read on. When Oklahoma City asked Gensler to
design a band shell for its Myriad Gardens, it sought a
compelling civic landmark, achieved with an economy
of means. Thanks to amplification technology, the band
shell could be an open, tubular-steel structure, easier to
maintain and less vulnerable to high winds.
Gensler used parametric modeling to generate the band
shell’s curving shape in 3D. To build it without breaking
the bank, the design team called on a roller coaster
manufacturer, imagining that the band shell might pose
similar moves. It did, and the structure was fabricated
directly from the team’s parametric model, saving time
and cost. The 40-foot-high band shell fronts Myriad
Gardens’ elliptical wave pool. At night, LEDs turn it into
a light show. And when the sun beats down, you can
find shade under its closely spaced tubular frame.
dialogue
editorial
Editor
John Parman
Creative Director
Mark Coleman
Issue Editors
Vernon Mays
Matthew Richardson
Designer
Peiti Chia
Managing Editor
Erin Luckiesh
Photo Editor and
Publications Manager
Katya Black
Web Designer
Jonathan Skolnick
contributors editorial board
Allison Arieff
Kevin Craft
Clare Jacobson
Sam Lubell
Vernon Mays
Annie Simpson
Mimi Zeiger
credits thanks
All images credited to Gensler unless
otherwise noted.
AEG provided: page 22 left
Dean Alexander: page 13
Christopher Barrett: page 1 far right; pages
32–33 both
Andrew Bordwin: page 7 bottom right
Paul Brokering: page 17
Benny Chan/Fotoworks: ifc
Bruce Damonte: page 6-7 bottom left; page 7
top right; page 15 bottom right; page 19;
page 20 bottom right; page 27 bottom left
Envirosell provided: page 24 top
Frank Gärtner/Getty Images: page 12 top
(screen on iPad)
Ryan Gobuty/Gensler: cover; page 1 middle
left; pages 14-15 top left; page 16 both;
page 20 middle right; page 23
David Keller/Gensler: page 26 right; page 30
bottom; page 31
David Kiang Photography/Getty Images:
page 10
Peter Kubilus: page 20 left
Nic Lehoux: page 1 middle right; page 26 left;
page 27 top and bottom right; page 28;
page 29 both; page 30 top; pages 34–35 both
Blake Mourer/Gensler: pages 4–5 both
Zach Nash: page 36 both
Gerry O’Leary: page 18
Timothy Soar: page 1 far left; pages 2–3
Sports Illustrated/Getty Images: page 12 top
(excluding the screen)
Yukmin/Getty Images: pages 24–25
Yum Restaurants International provided: page
9; page 15 top right
Jeff Zaruba: page 22 right
Robin Klehr Avia
Andy Cohen
Art Gensler
David Gensler
Diane Hoskins
Barbara Best-Santos, San Francisco
Michael Bodziner, San Francisco
Marty Borko, Los Angeles
Barry Bourbon, San Francisco
Maureen Boyer, San Francisco
John Bricker, New York
Alton Chow, Shanghai
Andy Cohen, Los Angeles
Kyle Davis, Chicago
Dian Duvall, San Francisco
Jonathan Emmett, Los Angeles
David Epstein, Austin
Tim Etherington, Shanghai
Michael Gatti, New York
Rob Gatzke, Morristown
Art Gensler, San Francisco
Doug Gensler, Boston
David Glover, Los Angeles
Jeff Henry, San Francisco
Bill Hooper, Washington, DC
Tom Ito, Los Angeles
Kathleen Jordan, New York
Lara Marrero, Los Angeles
Irwin Miller, Los Angeles
Melissa Mizell, San Francisco
Nancy Nodler, Houston
Jack Paruta, Morristown
Duncan Paterson, Los Angeles
Virginia Pettit, Washington, DC
Leah Ray, Chicago
Owain Roberts, London
Ray Shick, Shanghai
José Sirera, Abu Dhabi and London
Donna Taliercio, Washington, DC
Jon Tollit, London
Ron Turner, Los Angeles
Michel Weenick, Tokyo
Steve Weindel, San Francisco
Terence Young, Los Angeles
dialogue 20 I Leisure
Dialogue has a parallel Web edition—
dialogue.gensler.com—that lets you email
individual articles and access an archive
of past issues. Check it out and subscribe.
Gensler is a leading architecture, design,
planning, and consulting firm, with offices in
the Americas, Asia, Europe, and the Middle
East. Dialogue magazine, published twice
yearly, focuses on design’s ability to transform
organizations and improve people’s lives.
Dialogue is produced by Gensler Publications.
© 2011 Gensler. To comment or request
copies of the print edition, please write to us
(dialogue@gensler.com).
Dialogue is printed on FSC ® -certified, 10 percent
postconsumer-waste paper with ultralow-
VOC (–3 percent) vegetable oil–based ink.
Savings to our natural resources include:
7
16
469
1,639
7,389
million BTUs of net energy
fully grown trees
pounds of solid waste
pounds of greenhouse gases
gallons of waste water
37

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