SFO Airport Rail Transit Center
San Francisco, California

San Francisco’s “Air Train” light rail system ties together this busy international airport’s $4 billion facilities improvement program. LDA was the design architect on the hub of the system, providing the gateway to the domestic flights terminals from the support services such as car rentals, hotels, and long-term parking facilities.

In association with Kwan Henmi Architecture and Gordon Chong Partners, LDA acted as the partnership's design architect for these three key stations ringing an existing parking garage. Working closely with the Airport's selected light rail system engineers, we balanced the seemingly conflicting activities of the busy loop roads that serve Domestic Terminal arrivals and departures with cars, buses, cabs and vans, a five-level parking facility and seven passenger terminals.

Tracing the massive columns back through the garage with only minor losses, inspired a light and airy solution. Willowy trees made from slender steel tubes hold up a gently curving arc of exposed corrugated metal deck that becomes a light and transparent trellis to protect waiting passengers from the weather. Lifting gently, these metal shade trees give a glimpse of landing planes and the ever-changing San Francisco sky.

A complex program was resolved in a simple and elegant manner that belies the often conflicting pedestrian, automobile, and light rail traffic, security concerns, considerations for underlying supporting structures, and con-structibility issues.