Kai Flender on the links between airports and urban centers
Flender, a designer at Grimshaw, discusses his airport design work in the context of climate change.
June 13, 2018
Recorded on June 13, 2018.
In the second presentation of the League’s aviation and climate change event, Kai Flender discusses Grimshaw’s airport design work in Newark and Zurich. He discusses the importance of integrating urban transportation modes such as rail into airport master planning strategies.
His presentation follows Robert Chicas’s discussion of airport terminal design at HOK.
For a primer on the carbon impact of aviation (and shipping), watch a commissioned video by Professor Alice Larkin of the University of Manchester and the Tyndall Centre for Climate Change Research, which was presented as the introduction to this session.
Flender is an associate principal at Grimshaw’s New York studio. He previously worked in the firm’s London studio, where he led the design of the Zurich Airport terminal project. He brings his expertise to Grimshaw’s teams executing the new Terminal 1 at Newark Liberty International Airport and a new master plan for John F. Kennedy International Airport. He has worked on a range of projects beyond aviation, including major commercial developments in Berlin and London, as well as projects for transport.
Flender held a faculty position at the Monterrey Institute of Higher Education and Technology in Monterrey, Mexico, before relocating to New York earlier this year.
As part of the The Five Thousand Pound Life: Transportation, Connection and its Costs: Aviation and Climate Change was a discussion on rethinking transportation modes and their collective impact on greenhouse gas emissions organized by The Architectural League in June 2018. The series focused on air and sea in the spring of 2018 and will continue with two events on land-based transit in the fall of 2018.
The Five Thousand Pound Life is the League’s ongoing initiative to rethink our collective future through design in the face of climate change.
Explore
Bryan Comer on the carbon impact of shipping
Comer, a researcher at the International Council on Clean Transportation, discusses shipping, air pollution, and regulation.
Charmaine Chua on global logistics
Oberlin professor Chua discusses the links between carbon, capitalism, and logistics.
A conversation on shipping and climate change
A panel discusses the challenges of reducing the carbon impacts associated with sea shipping.