Archinect - News

Watch LAX's new Midfield Satellite Concourse South taxi to its final destination

2024-10-28T17:14:00-04:00

Woods Bagot has shared a video from the recent overnight installation of its Midfield Satellite Concourse South (or MSC South) project at Los Angeles International Airport (LAX).

The project adds around 146,000 square feet of space and eight gates designed to hold narrowbody aircraft.

Video courtesy Woods Bagot

Its realization was made possible by an innovative new process called Offsite Construction and Relocation (or OCR), which calls for an in-situ delivery staged in nine segments in order to avoid costly disruptions to air traffic operations after the process began earlier this year just north of the airport's northernmost runways. Buro Happold (structural engineering, sustainability, lighting, and acoustical design) was able to ensure its delivery in partnership with RAW International.

Image: Los Angeles World Airports (LAWA)

The next step after this major hurdle will be to assemble each of the segments through 2025.

Image: Los Angeles World Airports (LAWA)

Woods Bagot’s Ian L...

LAX Automated People Mover set to start service in January 2026

2024-07-19T17:57:00-04:00

The ever-moving public opening of the long-awaited Automated People Mover transit system at Los Angeles International Airport (LAX) has been given a new target of January 2026. The $2 billion project, which had recently been delayed until the end of next year, now expects construction to wrap up on December 8, 2025. The announcement was made Thursday by The Los Angeles Board of Airport Commissioners and caps a string of setbacks that have prevented it from realizing its originally targeted 2023 opening.

HDR is listed as the lead designer for the project. Once in operation trains will carry an estimated 30 million passengers annually, reducing the need for motor vehicle traffic to the airport by about 42 million cars. It forms a critical component of the $5.5 billion Landside Access Modernization Program (LAM), which includes the new Midfield Satellite Concourse expansion by Woods Bagot.

LAX Midfield Satellite Concourse South project has topped out in Los Angeles

2024-04-22T17:46:00-04:00

LAX's new Midfield Satellite Concourse South (or MSC South) recently topped out as the project's construction progresses in nine segments toward its 2025 completion date. The offsite construction will eventually yield eight new gates and a total of 150,000 square feet of space following a first-of-its-kind integrated design for manufacturing and assembly (DFMA).

Buro Happold, structural engineer, sustainability consultant, lighting and acoustical designer on the project, in partnership with architects Woods Bagot and RAW International, says: "Each segment was designed with an independent lateral system consisting of buckling restrained braced frames in the east-west direction and Simspon Yield Link moment frames in the north-south direction to allow for access to gates along the terminal length. Additional analysis was then undertaken to determine the lifting points of each segment ...

LAX Automated People Mover construction won't be completed until 2025

2024-04-01T11:45:00-04:00

KTLA is reporting that construction setbacks on the long-awaited Automated People Mover transit system at Los Angeles International Airport (LAX) have delayed the project until at least the end of 2025.

According to the local outlet’s analysis of a new Fitch Ratings report, “The Automated People Mover system is 96% complete but increasing construction delays and a ‘strained relationship’ between the contractor and Los Angeles World Airports, which owns and operates LAX, have kept it from being completed.”

The news comes after five years of construction on the $5.5 billion transportation component of the airport’s larger $14.5 billion first phase of upgrades. Completion was originally expected last year. Once it is finished, the 1.2-million-square-foot station will connect the rest of the 2.25-mile-long tract to Terminals 3, 4, and 5 and form the bookend of a system that will serve approximately 30 million people a year.

Related on Archinect: Final LAX Automated People Mover statio...

Woods Bagot's LAX Midfield Satellite Concourse South expansion has broken ground

2023-07-13T16:42:00-04:00

A groundbreaking ceremony held in late June marks the official start of work on the LAX Midfield Satellite Concourse South project, an expansion of the recently-opened West Gates at Tom Bradley International Terminal.

The Woods Bagot-designed $400 million MSC South project will add 150,000 square feet, spread across eight gates and two stories, to LAX. It forms part of Los Angeles World Airport’s (LAWA), the airport authority that owns and operates the airport, $14.5 billion capital investment improvement project, which includes terminal renovations, the construction of new ground transportation hubs, and an automated people mover system.

Aerial view of site. Image courtesy of Woods Bagot.

MSC South’s construction will utilize what the architects describe as a first-of-its-kind technique, where its building components will be built offsite and then delivered to the location for assembly.

The new concourse will have an L-shaped layout with an exterior brise soleil that will reduce glare and solar radiation while maximizing outdoor views. The design also draws inspiration from LA’s modernist homes. The project is grounded in sustainable practices as it aims for LEED Silver certification. Completion...

LAX's Automated People Mover reaches another construction milestone ahead of 2023 completion

2022-12-13T18:28:00-05:00

Another milestone has been reached in the ongoing Automated People Mover (APM) project at Los Angeles International Airport after the last structural steel elements near the historic Theme Building have been installed.

The 180-ton final piece serves as a base for the new viewing pavilion and is connected to the APM's East Central Terminal Area (CTA) station. Most of the decking, glass panels, and roofing elements of the APM's six pedestrian bridges have now also been installed, leaving only metal ceiling and electrical components of their construction left before completion.

Image courtesy Los Angeles World Airports

"The viewing pavilion is a major milestone for the APM as it marks the completion of the project's largest construction efforts," Sam Choy, the Project Director for LINXS Constructors, explained in a news release. It joins the recently-completed final West Central Terminal Area station and pedestrian bridge for the $5.5 billion project, which will be fully completed nex...

Final LAX Automated People Mover station tops out

2022-08-24T18:46:00-04:00

The 2,000-ton final structural piece of Los Angeles International Airport’s new Automated People Mover stations project is in place after the conclusion of its six-month construction phase was announced last week by Balfour Beatty, as part of LINXS Constructors.

A total of 127 piles were needed to complete West Central Terminal Area (CTA) station, the last and largest of six stations, which will be connected to Tom Bradley International Terminal via a pedestrian bridge that’s slated for placement in the fall. Once complete, the 1.2-million-square-foot station will connect the rest of the 2.25-mile-long tract to Terminals 3, 4, and 5 and form the bookend of a system that will serve approximately 30 million people a year.

View this post on Instagram A post shared by Balfour Beatty US (@balfourbeatty_us)

“Topping out the final station at the West Central Terminal Area signifies our team’s progress in providing a revolutionary travel experience for worldwide passenger...

LAX’s modernization project is starting to come together

2022-01-05T13:58:00-05:00

The airport's $5.5-billion Landside Access Modernization Program, or "LAMP," saw the completion of several of its major components in 2021, as well as construction milestones for the automated people mover that will serve as its centerpiec

Among the more important elements of the highly-publicized program, the Automated People Mover (AMP) system, is now 67% complete, according to Urbanize. This includes a new Metro station and elevated monorail track, which is reportedly 87% complete. A new car rental facility adjacent to the airport and 405 freeway is also 77% complete.

Additional renovations are expected to bring the total cost to approximately $14.5 billion and are slated for completion ahead of the city’s turn as host of the 2028 Olympic Games. Urbanize Los Angeles has more on the upgrades here.

LAX Automated People Mover development consortium hits major milestone

2021-07-02T16:33:00-04:00

An international consortium of engineering, construction, and infrastructure development firms has begun work on Los Angeles International Airport’s (LAX) Automated People Mover (APM) project.

The team, named LAX Integrated Express Solutions (LINXS), is led by experienced public-private partnership developers and equity investors, including Fluor Enterprises, Balfour Beatty Investments, Hochtief PPP Solutions GmbH, ACS Infrastructure Development, and Bombardier Transportation. LINXS has also enlisted the services of construction engineering company Flatiron West, along with fellow ACS Group subsidiary company Dragados and American design firm HDR.

The APM project is the centerpiece of the Los Angeles World Airport’s (LAWA), the airport authority that owns and operates LAX, Landside Access Modernization Program (LAMP), a $5.5 billion project that aims to relieve congestion and enhance traveler experience at LAX. LAMP is part of a $14 billion facilities upgrade at LAX to help facili...

LAX releases new expansion details

2020-11-03T16:35:00-05:00

Construction could begin by the end of 2021 on the initial phases of an expansion project which could bring new passenger gates to Los Angeles International Airport. The LAX Airfield and Terminal Modernization Project, according to an environmental study published on October 29 by Los Angeles World Airports, calls for an extension of Terminal 1 onto an adjoining surface parking lot.

Los Angeles International Airport, the world's fourth busiest airport during pre-pandemic levels, has released more details on its ambitious expansion goals.

In March of 2019, LAX already started work on its $4.9bn Automated People Mover system.

What will become of the Theme Building at LAX?

2019-06-18T19:02:00-04:00

[W]hen will Los Angeles International Airport resurrect its own iconic, underused, transportation-adjacent architectural wonder? Maybe soon. As the airport advances on a major expansion and modernization, including a new people-mover train scheduled to open in 2023, Los Angeles World Airports officials are looking for ways to bring a hotel into the core area that includes the Theme Building.

Since its completion in 1961, the Theme Building has greeted visitors to Los Angeles with its uniquely space-age, mid-century design from the center of the Los Angeles Airport. The Pereira & Luckman-designed building has taken on a lot of functions in its 58 year history (including a few restaurants and an observation deck, for example) but its future is currently unknown.

Paul Williams in front of the Theme Building.

According to the LA Times, officials of Los Angeles World Airports asked for ideas from “teams interested in presenting viable options” for adding a hotel and conference center in the middle of LAX." The Theme Building is speculated to be a potential site for the hotel and conference center, in line with the recent renovation of the TWA Building at JFK Airport, built just one year after the Theme Building.

Given the frustration many visitors face when attempting to enter and exit LAX by car through its horseshoe thoroughfare, a hotel in the center might prove to be an...

LAX ranked worst airport in the world; Safdie's new Singapore airport is best

2019-06-12T16:47:00-04:00

There are uglier airports and airports with fewer amenities; there are airports that are older and airports that are more rundown; there are airports with ruder staff and airports with cruder passengers. There are, without doubt, by almost all measures, worse airports in this world. Except by one measure—an exceedingly crucial measure. In fact, behind safety, it’s almost certainly the most important measure: getting in and getting out.

Fodor's Travel Guide has ranked Los Angeles International Airport as the worst airport in the world, due in large part to the "improbably stupid design of its catastrophic horseshoe motor-loop."

The airport's design is attributed to noted Los Angeles architect and urban planner William Pereira, who also designed Don Muang Airport in Bangkok, Thailand, Tehran International Airport in Iran, and Baghdad International Airport in Iraq, among others. The latter site features the same horseshoe design as LAX, while the two other airports are designed along linear, single-loaded paths. Like LAX, however, Don Muang Airport is designed with a double-decker arrangement that separates arrivals and departures. Don't tell Fodor's!

Safdie Architect's Jewel Changi Airport in Singapore is among the best in the world, Image courtesy Wikimedia user Matteo Morando.

The best airport on Fodor's list? Safdie Architects' recently-completed Jewel Changi Airport in Singapore, of course. The 1.46 million-squa...

LAX breaks ground on its new $4.9bn Automated People Mover

2019-03-14T13:42:00-04:00

A groundbreaking ceremony will be held Thursday for the 2.25-mile Automated People Mover at Los Angeles International Airport, which aims to cut down on auto traffic traveling in and out of the airport, officials announced Monday. The project has a targeted opening date of 2023.

Rendering of the people mover train above the terminal loop.

Earlier this morning, LA Mayor Eric Garcetti and other city officials celebrated the kick-off of what will be one of the most significant upgrades to Los Angeles International Airport—an elevated Automated People Mover system that will carry passengers among terminals and finally create an ample connection to the regional light rail system and the brand new consolidated rent-a-car facility.

The nearly $5 billion project is expected to bring much-needed congestion relief now that LAX has taken the title of fourth busiest airport in the world (serving a whopping 87.5 million passengers in 2018) and is projected to welcome even more guests when Los Angeles will host the 2028 Summer Olympics and Paralympics.

LAX announces consortium to build its new $4.9bn monorail system

2018-06-13T14:03:00-04:00

Bombardier Rail Technologies, ACS Infrastructure Development, Balfour Beatty, Fluor Enterprises and HOCHTIEF PPP Solutions North America have all been chosen to deliver a $4.9bn project to design, build and install an automated people mover system at Los Angeles International Airport. [...] The system will run on a 3.6km elevated dual-lane guideway and will serve six newly-built stations, creating connections between the airport, public and private transportation, and a new car rental facility.

Geoff Manaugh takes a look inside LAX's impressive airport security apparatus

2017-01-16T20:43:00-05:00

In the summer of 2014, Anthony McGinty and Michelle Sosa were hired by Los Angeles World Airports to lead a unique, new classified intelligence unit on the West Coast. After only two years, their global scope and analytic capabilities promise to rival the agencies of a small nation-state. Their roles suggest an intriguing new direction for infrastructure protection in an era when threats are as internationally networked as they are hard to predict.

Being the world's fifth-busiest airport (74,937,004 travelers passed through LAX in 2015) makes this infrastructure megaproject one of the top-ranked terrorist and aviation targets in the country. With billions of dollars spent on the usual airport expansion and modernization projects in recent decades came also the need for enhanced anti-terrorism capabilities that gave birth to its own classified intelligence unit.

"Under the moniker of “critical infrastructure protection,” energy-production, transportation-logistics, waste-disposal, and other sites have been transformed from often-overlooked megaprojects on the edge of the metropolis into the heavily fortified, tactical crown jewels of the modern state," Manaugh writes. "Bridges, tunnels, ports, dams, pipelines, and airfields have an emergent geopolitical clout that now rivals democratically elected civic institutions."

Here are the five teams competing to building LAX's future people-mover

2016-08-18T13:27:00-04:00

The long-awaited people-moving system at Los Angeles International Airport is actually on its way and it's enough to make any Angeleño misty-eyed. LAX, the second busiest airport in the US, is desperately lacking an adequate public transit connection. Currently, visitors must rely on shuttles that come every 20 minutes to connect to the nearest Metro line, grab an (expensive) cab, or find a saintly friend with a car willing to deal with a congested and confusing pick-up situation.

Five teams are competing for the commission:

Gateway Connectors: Kiewit Infrastructure with Skanska USA, Meridiam; design by Mott MacDonald and Gannett Fleming
LA ConnextPartners: Ferrovial Agroman, Bechtel, Cintra, John Laing and Bombardier; design by Bechtel
LAX Connecting Alliance: OHL USA, Acciona Infraestructuras and Charles Pankow Builders; design by Arup
LINXS, led by Fluor Enterprises with Balfour Beatty, Flatiron West, Hochtief, ACS and Dragados USA; design by HDR Engineering and HNTB Corporation
PWA, l...

Ball-Nogues and other LA artists unveil public art commissions at LAX

2015-07-02T19:28:00-04:00

The Tom Bradley International Terminal at LAX debuted this week three new public art commissions designed to greet departing and arriving passengers and provide a measure of calm and reflection amid the chaos of air travel. The artists involved all have strong ties to Los Angeles -- Mark Bradford, Pae White and the Ball-Nogues studio each resides or works in the L.A. area.

LAX's New Tom Bradley Terminal Receives LEED Gold Standard

2015-04-09T17:35:00-04:00

Los Angeles International Airport (LAX), the Pacific gateway to the United States, has achieved LEED Gold certification for its new Tom Bradley International Terminal (TBIT), the crown jewel of the Bradley West renovation. This makes the 1.25-million-square-foot facility the largest LEED Gold airport terminal in the United States. Designed by Fentress Architects, TBIT is not only sustainable, it is America’s most technologically-advanced airport to date.

In the press release by the architects who designed the Tom Bradley terminal expansion, they detail some of the projects' most notable aspects:

The interior of the terminal contains "more than 12,000-square-feet of LED tiles and hundreds of LCD screens" to entertain travelers.
The project includes 15-gate terminals and concourse, designed to give room for expansion with LAX now the second-busiest airport in the nation.
Numerous features were designed to make the expansion sustainable, notably the use of low-E glass to minimize heat gain and low-flow water fixtures.