Almost all airport designs are
governed by regulations established by the International Civil Aviation
Organization to ensure pilots circling Toledo or Timbuktu remain
properly oriented and deliver their passengers safely—Wellington
International Airport
HIDE CAPTION
Bird's eye secrets
Lauren O'Neil turns
those strictures into art, with the help of Google Earth. The
Brooklyn-based designer has made a meticulous study of airport runways
and logged the results on a Tumblr called Holding Pattern. These views reveal beautiful compositions at airports that are nothing special at ground level.
"I've found even the most
humdrum cities or outdated terminals can have beautiful compositions
from bird's-eye," O'Neil says. "Even Cleveland rocks!"
Dozens of carefully
cropped images reveal common traits among airports, and the logic and
order embodied by seemingly random lines becomes clear. Here are some
tips to help make sense of the mishmash of lines and symbols you might
see from seat 17F.
Runway Math
Airport runways aren't
numbered based on priority, but compass bearings. A runway that is 194°
away from magnetic north would be simplified to 190° to prevent rounding
errors, and the last digit is dropped, leaving it at 19. Fun fact: Most
runways are able to be used in both directions, and when approached
from the opposite side the runway's number is achieved by subtracting 18
or 180°.
Flying Fonts
Airports use a
specialized font to number their runways. It's highly geometric, which
eliminates confusing curves and can be reduced to simple schematics,
making it easy for groundskeepers lacking typographic training to
recreate. The font apparently has no name, but the numbers are called
"runway designators" in pilot parlance.
These geometric numbers are used on runways due to their unmistakable shapes and their ability to be easily drawn.
Courtesy Transport Canada
Look Out!
Lines radiating like
spokes around unpaved patches are common in many of O'Neil's images and
act as warnings to pilots to stay off the airport's lawn. Many airports
are built on soft soils, so a fully-loaded Airbus A380, weighing 230
metric tons at takeoff, will sink into a patch of sod quickly, requiring
hours of recovery, repair, and rerouting.
USA! USA!
Not only does the United
States refuse to get on board with the metric system and day/month
notation, but we can't even agree with anyone aside from the Philippines
on what to call the area of pavement where passengers get on and off
the planes. From Cootamundra Airport in Australia to the Bloodvein River
Airport in central Canada, this area is called an apron. Here in the
states, we call it a ramp. Whatever you do, don't call it a tarmac
unless it's actually got a tar surface.
Flyer's Ed
A runway, like most
roads, has a center line. But there are plenty of markings unfamiliar to
drivers. Eight white bars that resemble piano keys mark the threshold
and give pilots an indication of where it would be safe to touch down.
Two large white rectangles are the aiming points—the areas pilots
should, well, aim for, followed by touchdown markers represented by four
white bars. Chevrons at the end of the runway mark the direction of a
given strip, but if your plane hits one during takeoff or landing know
that a disaster was narrowly averted.
Lines of White? Ready for Flight! Lines of Yellow? Prepare to Mellow.
No pilots actually say
this, but it's good to know that if you see white lines and markings it
means you're en route to take off. If you see yellow lines and markings,
you're stuck on the taxiway.
Color,
and the giant yellow "TAXI," that mark the difference between runways
and taxiways are to see clear in this image of Boston's Logan
International Airport.
Courtesy Lauren O'Neil
About the Artist
O'Neil always has lived
under the flight paths of airports--a tiny municipal airstrip in her
hometown and JFK in New York City--and grew fascinated by the cadence of
departures and the changing flight paths over the course of the day.
During a moment of wanderlust she opened Google Earth and started
contemplating runway layouts from a birds-eye perspective.
O'Neil traveled the
globe, virtually, to create beautiful images based on bureaucratic
design guidelines. With her art direction, Denver's broad expanses of
dull grey concrete tiles became dynamic. Her crop of a runway in
Wellington, New Zealand, laced with bright yellow lines became a work
worthy of Joan Miró. And hidden treasures, like an inscription in honor
of Amelia Earhart, was uncovered in the aesthetic wasteland that is
Newark's Liberty International airport.
Each image starts with a clear itinerary, but O'Neil is open to diversions.
"I'm really drawn to the
patterns, line work, and typography on the tarmac—especially as it
contrasts with the geography," she says. "I was really inspired by the
Madrid-Barajas airport after mapping it for Holding Pattern. Everything
seemed so considered and straightforward, which lent itself to stronger
compositions," she says.
Turns out, MAD is
considered a textbook example of good runway design, known for
maximizing the flow of air traffic in a compressed amount of space.
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