Synopsis
The focus of the studio will be the design of a new airport expansion for the Ibiza International Airport, growing capacity and performance for the existing terminal building in Ibiza, Spain. The architectural proposals will be guided by the coefficient of time, while exploring the design of a facility with extreme swings between high and low passenger volumes across peak and off-season cycles. Students will study stacking, flipping, rotating, pop-up space among other time-sensitive spatial configurations in order to devise speculations for a new flex airport typology.
Premise
The idea of making a 4,000 mile journey in a single day, to many people, may sound like a standard international flight. In fact, more than half the world’s population, 9.9 billion people, took flights in 2025.1Passenger levels have more than recovered since pre-pandemic levels, are steadily rising, and are expected to double to 18.7 billion passengers by 2045.2People are flying today more than ever before in recorded history. Within this context of ballooning flight numbers, we look to one uniquely extreme microcosm as a learning opportunity. The island of Ibiza, in the Spanish Balearic Islands, is the number one European holiday destination. Useful to this Studio is the specific rhythm of passenger flow; with exorbitantly high numbers of visitors during peak summer season [with airlines reporting a shortage of planes to accommodate crowds, and pilots wishing for more space].3 Meanwhile, the winter season by contrast is serenely quiet, with an abundance of underutilized square footage, staff, and resources.
Site
The Ibiza International Airport is slated for a 33% increase in passenger capacity planned for 2027-2031. Expansion goals are twofold: Firstly, to equip the airport to receive direct flights from New York and additional long-distance sites. This extended-reach expansion focuses on accommodating larger, heavier aircraft, requiring adding or extending the existing runway. Secondly, the Studio premise recognizes that Ibiza, as the number one European holiday destination, has an airport that experiences one of the widest swings in seasonal passenger populations depending on its high and low seasons. Demand can be measured by the deployment of 71 check-in desks during peak season, and shrinking to just 21 check-in desks during low season. Adding to this demand, Ibiza also serves as the sole airport for the neighboring Island, Formentera. By virtue of being an island, 95% of travelers arrive to Ibiza by airplane. The remaining 5% by boat. Within this context, Ibiza’s airport is a fulcrum, raising the importance of this critical infrastructural device to that of a valve, determining influx and outflow of nearly every arrival, leaving the margin of error to approach zero.
Project
With this critical role, the Studio exploration of a new airport expansion that can accommodate expansion and contraction holds timely significance. Learning from large facilities such as the London Aquatics Center that had to imagine a life post-Olympics, Ibiza’s needs multiply this cycle by experiencing this degree of flux annually. The studio will explore Ibiza Airport as a microcosm to study the plasticity of a multi-modal infrastructural building. The question of pop-up space, hybrid operations, automation, smart-gates / E-gates will be explored as well as energy-saving measures and sustainable land use. New airport designs will respond to constancies of change, and multi-use.
Methodology
Much like Robert Venturi and Denise Scott Brown learned from Las Vegas, analyzing how the speed of the automobile on the Vegas Strip had the power to transform the consumption of linear space and reorder the perspectival view, we will also learn from and study time as a coefficient of design. The airport, while a static structure, hosts some of the most time-sensitive systems of all building typologies. The building, and its constellation of dependents, will be studied as an instrument of time measurement: play, pause and precision. The studio prompts students to explore relationships between form, space and time. Seasonal and 24-hour time, hourly, minute, second, nano-secondtime scales will be explored in the development of time-sensitive spatial strategies. How might the building act as a modulating device, aptly suited, whether bursting or sprawling?Format The studio will have access to aviation expert Kashyap Bhimjiani, Principal at Grimshaw Architects, through a workshop and pin-ups dedicated to architectural considerations of medium-scale airport design. The studio will have access to Iberia Airlines captain Juan Carlos Granados for detailed technical and logistical knowledge. Amina Blacksher’s professional expertise on signature aviation projects guides the framework and studio prompt. Blacksher will be teaching in the studio on Mondays and Thursdays from 2pm - 6pm throughout the duration of the semester. Following shared research, students will work in groups of two (2), on the design and delivery of their studio projects.
Travel
The studio will travel to Ibiza during the second week of February and engage with aviation industry experts and local sources of knowledge. The itinerary includes touring the existing Ibiza International Airport and surroundings, speaking with Iberia Airlines captain Juan Carlos Granados, Eco Tourism sites including Es Broll de Buscatell:11th century irrigation network of mills and tunnels that distribute water to terraced fields; Salt mine Ses Salines Nature Reserve - salt having been established as the main export of Ibiza since 650 B.C. Dalt Vila Historical Complex UNESCO site in Ibiza Town, Ferry Day Trip to Formentera Island - from which air travel is accessed solely via Ibiza Airport. There will be additional time to explore elements of Ibiza that advance development of student proposals.