Bloom

The current passenger facilities are insufficient in fulfilling the current passenger demands and what is currently expected in terms of quality and availability. If there is not a significant change in airport infrastructure and offerings, then the entire experience of air travel will be adversely affected.

Airports must be in a constant state of change to keep up with passenger demands and offer new and exciting experiences.

Aim

The Aim of the project is to explore the factors and influences that both directly and indirectly affect a passengers experience and emotions within the airport airside ecosystem surrounding discretionary activities. This investigation was to impact a design journey that focused on improving passenger experiences to create a more enjoyable air travel ecosystem as a whole.

Name: Airports of the Future | Callum Burton | QUT
File Type: application
File Size: 6 MB
Link: Download File

Initial ideation

The initial design work developed into five idea generation areas as to how the airport airside ecosystem could be changed and adjusted to better meet the growing needs of airport facilities in these unprecedented times. The five areas for improvement were: personal luggage products, airside furniture design, adjustable large-scale interactive furniture as exhibitions, personal protective equipment for travel, and personal space creation devices.

time to meet bloom

Bloom is a different approach to the traditional airport seating designs and is a multipurpose furniture piece designed for airside airport spaces. The individual seating design, the luggage tracking capabilities, and app interface system separate Bloom from the existing market solutions.

On the left, the unique new to world over-centre cable-driven joint that was developed from the ground up for the central open-close mechanism of the Bloom chair. It features a cable-driven component on each arm with an interlocked central mechanism that provides a smooth movement pattern to open all five arms of the chair at the same time.

The unique initial experience of opening the Bloom chair and having it blossom out into the upright position is only found in this design. The transformative idea of seating being a fluid concept and adaptable to each passenger throughout their journey is one that was explored deeply.

The app interface allows passengers to directly track their luggage and tune into the airport ecosystem through an easy to understand interface that they can have on them at all times. The interface allows for updates on their flight boarding, gate number, and approximately how long it will take to get there. A weight distribution indicator and graph is given to the passenger and updates when their luggage is being moved. This feature ties into an alarm system that will advise the passenger if their bag is removed, giving them a greater sense of security when travelling.