Archinect - News

Chicago O’Hare $300 million airport terminal renovation breaks ground

2024-04-25T12:03:00-04:00

Construction has begun on a $300 million renovation of Chicago O’Hare International Airport’s Terminal 3. The upgrades are expected to take three years and will overhaul the terminal’s infrastructure from security checkpoints to baggage claim, as well as adding amenities and improving accessibility.

Named ElevateT3, the project will include the reconfiguration of two TSA checkpoints into a single screening area, an expanded passenger corridor between concourses K and L, and the development of approximately 10,000 square feet of new concessions and amenity spaces. The terminal’s interior and exterior are also to be renovated to improve overall energy efficiency.

Previously on Archinect: FAA gives the final go-ahead to multibillion-dollar Chicago O'Hare expansion. Image render courtesy of Studio ORD.

Construction of the new terminal is expected to be completed by the summer of 2027 and will take a phased approach to allow continuous operations throughout Terminal 3 during construction....

Terminal 5 expansion at O'Hare International Airport opens to the public

2023-02-09T17:45:00-05:00

Chicago’s $1.3 billion O’Hare International Airport Terminal 5 expansion and renovation has been completed, marking the end of four years of work to modernize the terminal.

The project broke ground in 2019, with construction led by Austin Power Partners. The terminal’s capacity was increased by 25% to improve efficiency and reduce delays. Passenger amenity space was increased by 75%, and the existing building was expanded by around 350,000 square feet. Additional renovations were made to 750,000 square feet of the existing structure.

HOK and Muller & Muller Ltd. led the redesign of the facilities, maintaining the original 1993 design while modernizing them for today's demands. Vaulted ceilings invite natural light and provide views across the airfield toward the Chicago skyline. The project also incorporated new sustainable technology throughout the terminal, including 40,000 square feet of high-performance glass, water efficiency measures that exceed Sustainable Airport Manual re...

FAA gives the final go-ahead to multibillion-dollar Chicago O'Hare expansion

2022-11-23T12:10:00-05:00

The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) has issued approval to the proposed O’Hare 21 Expansion plan following the results of an environmental review that was announced by the agency on Tuesday.

U.S. Secretary of Transportation Pete Buttigieg was on hand in the Windy City to join Mayor Lori Lightfoot for the announcement, which allows for construction to begin in the spring on two satellite concourses and a new Global Terminal that will replace O’Hare’s existing Terminal 2. The FAA says “no significant impact” will be made by the Terminal Area Plan (TAP) and that it will immediately lead to a decrease in emissions thanks to reduced taxi times and more flexible gate capacity. The total budget for the TAP project is around $7.1 billion.

Image render courtesy of Studio ORD.

SOM will lead the construction of both concourses, which add about 1.3 million square feet of space and are expected to be delivered between 2027 and 2028, respectively. The new Global Terminal designed by Studio ...

Renowned architect Helmut Jahn dies at 81 from cycling accident

2021-05-10T16:14:00-04:00

Helmut Jahn, the highly respected German-American architect, was tragically killed on Saturday from a vehicular collision while riding his bicycle in the Chicago suburb of Campton Hills.

Born in Germany, near Nuremberg, in 1940, Jahn arrived in Chicago in 1966 to study under Ludwig Mies van der Rohe at the Illinois Institute of Technology (IIT). A year later, he joined architecture firm CF Murphy Associates and worked on several high-profile projects, including the McCormick Place in Chicago and the J Edgar Hoover Building in Washington, DC. He later took full ownership of the firm, renaming it Murphy/Jahn and then eventually JAHN in 2012.

Jahn’s work is best defined by his postmodern steel and glass structures that combined historical and contextual references with high-tech engineering solutions, both paying homage to and departing from the modernism of Mies. It was in the late 1970s and ‘80s that Jahn made his mark, and, in Chicago, his work propelled him as one America’s most p...

'Enthralling gateway to its city:' Blair Kamin on Foster + Partners-led O'Hare expansion proposal

2019-01-30T15:14:00-05:00

Chances for architectural greatness are rare. When they come around, we best grab them. Such is the opportunity Chicago has before it with one of the five plans for a new global terminal at O’Hare International Airport.

Chicago Tribune architecture critic, Blair Kamin, comes out in clear support of the Norman Foster-led finalist entry to the $8.5B Chicago O’Hare 21 Terminal Expansion competition: "That plan, from a team led by London-based Foster + Partners architects, promises to be everything an airport should be: a precisely-honed machine for moving people and baggage; easy to get around intuitively; and an enthralling gateway to its city." Foster's joint venture team also includes Chicago-based architects Epstein and Moreno.

The other four finalist teams, announced last November, are Fentress-EXP-Brook-Garza Joint Venture Partners, Santiago Calatrava LLC, Skidmore, Owings & Merrill (SOM), and Studio ORD Joint Venture Partners.

Previously: Questions raised over selection process for massive expansion of O’Hare International Airport

Questions raised over selection process for massive expansion of O’Hare International Airport

2019-01-18T15:34:00-05:00

A city-appointed evaluation committee heard presentations from the architects on Tuesday and Wednesday, yet the city is declining to make public the identities of the committee’s members. Worse, the committee will prepare a report, but that report won’t be made public.

The highly anticipated international design competition to expand Chicago's O'Hare International Airport has released their shortlist of five proposals from heavyweights Foster + Partners, Studio Gang, Calatrava, SOM, and Fentress. Amidst chatter on the merits of each, questions have been raised over the transparency of the selection process, which refuses to disclose both the identities of the evaluation committee as well as their report on the five presentations. This lack of transparency matters because, as Blair Kamin cautions in the Chicago Tribune, it "means that the public will be in the dark about what the experts think. It also means Mayor Rahm Emanuel will be free to make an arbitrary or ill-informed choice."

Foster, Calatrava, Gang, SOM among teams shortlisted for $8.5B Chicago O'Hare airport expansion

2018-11-09T15:01:00-05:00

After receiving bids from twelve groups that included some of the planet’s top architectural talent, Chicago has narrowed its search down to five teams hoping to design a $8.5 billion terminal expansion of O’Hare International Airport.

The list of five finalist teams includes some of the big-name bidders that responded to Chicago's O’Hare 21 Terminal Expansion Project RFP back in September:

Fentress-EXP-Brook-Garza Joint Venture Partners
Foster Epstein Moreno JV Joint Venture Partners
Santiago Calatrava LLC
Skidmore, Owings & Merrill (SOM)
Studio ORD Joint Venture Partners

The group of well known firms that didn't make the cut includes Rafael Viñoly, Studio Fuksas, Bjarke Ingels Group, Gensler, HOK, Grimshaw Architects, Perkins+Will, and iconic Chicago firm Jahn, architects of O’Hare’s Terminal 1 in 1988 (as C.F. Murphy Associates).

"Chicago has called upon some of the world’s best designers to help carry out our vision for the new O’Hare Global Terminal—the key to a bigger, better and more modern O’Hare for the 21st century," commented Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel on the selection. "As we look ahead to O’Hare’s future—we won’t forget Chicago’s legacy of architecture and transportation. By the end of this competition...

Architects bidding for Chicago O'Hare airport expansion includes BIG, Calatrava, SOM, Fuksas

2018-09-24T14:12:00-04:00

The architect of the unbuilt Chicago Spire is among the designers vying for the massive O’Hare International Airport expansion project. The Zurich-based firm of Santiago Calatrava, whose projects include an airport in Bilbao, Spain, and the over-budget World Trade Center transportation center in New York, was one of 12 teams that responded to the city’s Thursday deadline to submit qualifications for the $8.7 billion expansion [...].

According to the Chicago Tribune, the list of teams bidding for the $8.7 billion Chicago O'Hare International Airport expansion includes big-name firms such as SOM, Perkins+Will, Bjarke Ingels Group, Santiago Calatrava, Gensler, HOK, Fentress Architects, JAHN, Epstein, and Studio Fuksas.

Elon Musk’s Boring Company selected to build Chicago airport high-speed transit tunnel

2018-06-15T14:53:00-04:00

Autonomous 16-passenger vehicles would zip back and forth at speeds exceeding 100 mph in tunnels between the Loop and O’Hare International Airport under a high-speed transit proposal being negotiated between Mayor Rahm Emanuel’s City Hall and billionaire tech entrepreneur Elon Musk’s The Boring Co., city and company officials have confirmed. Emanuel’s administration has selected Musk’s company from four competing bids to provide high-speed transportation between downtown and the airport.

Musk's Boring Co. beat out established engineering firms, including Mott MacDonald and JLC Infrastructure, even though it has famously been in business for less than two years and only has a test tunnel near the company's headquarters in the Los Angeles area to show for as construction experience.

Chicago city council approves $8.5 billion O'Hare airport expansion

2018-03-29T13:35:00-04:00

Chicago’s City Council on Wednesday approved a multibillion-dollar expansion plan for O’Hare International Airport, after an earlier dispute between the airport’s two largest carriers had previously threatened to snarl the project.

"The city of Chicago entered into an agreement with carriers United Airlines, American Airlines, Delta Air Lines and Spirit Airlines for airport renovations that include expanding the airport’s existing terminals and increasing the number and availability of some gates," Reuters reports.

O’Hare airport announces $1.3B expansion deal

2016-02-02T14:21:00-05:00

Mayor Rahm Emanuel and the city's major airlines have struck a deal to build the final runway envisioned in the city's multibillion-dollar modernization of O'Hare International Airport, but new gates that experts agree are key to significant reductions in long-standing flight delays are not part of the pact. The agreement, which the mayor formally announced Saturday, calls for spending $1.3 billion to build a sixth east-west runway at the airfield’s north end [...]