{"id":148472,"date":"2022-07-26T21:00:00","date_gmt":"2022-07-27T01:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/architizer.com\/blog\/?p=148472"},"modified":"2022-11-12T08:08:52","modified_gmt":"2022-11-12T13:08:52","slug":"airport-viewing-park","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/architizer.com\/blog\/practice\/details\/airport-viewing-park\/","title":{"rendered":"Mathison Mathison Architects Capture the Joy of Flight and Create Welcoming GFIA Airport Viewing Park"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Project Status: Built<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
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Year: 2017<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
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Size: 1000 sqft – 3000 sqft<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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The GFIA Viewing Park <\/strong>\u2013 owned by the Gerald R. Ford International Airport in Grand Rapids, Michigan has served as a popular location for visitors since 1995. The park started with limited capacity and amenities – a lone portable toilet, deteriorating picnic tables, inadequate trash receptacles, and no shade. The demand for additional parking, toilet facilities, upgraded picnic sites, and a sheltered area formed the functional core of this project. But the heart of this endeavor was to create a new public place that welcomes all people, and captures the joy of flight.<\/p>\n

Architizer chatted with Ben Franceschi, Principal at Mathison Mathison Architects<\/a>, to learn more about this project.<\/p>\n

Architizer: What inspired the initial concept for your design?<\/strong><\/p>\n

Ben Franceschi: The sloping twin roofs celebrate the trajectory of flight, providing shelter, shade, and gathering space while creating a sense of openness to the broad horizon, landscape, and sky. Wood-cladding on the underside of each roof offers warmth and human-scale, adding to the place-making value of the pavilion. The thickness of each roof plane was minimized using innovative, below-grade moment connections to resist the massive uplift of this open-air structure.<\/p>\n