This week’s Picture of the Week looks at Pittsburgh’s new terminal terrace, featuring native plantings and seating in a post-security outdoor space. It is the second of four outdoor spaces funded through local philanthropic support.
Pittsburgh International Airport (PIT) has opened an outdoor terrace beyond security, giving passengers airside access to fresh air and open space, a feature that remains uncommon at US airports.
The North Airside terrace, unveiled on Tuesday, is one of four outdoor terraces in the airport’s new terminal, two landside and two airside. The terminal was designed by Gensler and HDR in association with luis vidal + architects.
Located near the start of Concourse D, the terrace covers more than 1,000 square feet with flexibility to expand. It includes built-in bench seating, tables and chairs, native plantings and a pet relief area.
Philanthropic funding supports four-terrace programme
The opening comes less than three months after the larger landside UPMC Terrace opened. The remaining two terraces are due to open in 2027, with the programme supported financially by the Richard King Mellon Foundation and the Hillman Foundation.
Christina Cassotis, CEO of the Allegheny County Airport Authority, said: “We are incredibly proud to open our latest outdoor terrace, one that provides access to the outdoors post-security. These terraces are the most beautiful outdoor spaces at a US airport and have been carefully designed to allow for a Pittsburgh, western Pennsylvania, Allegheny County experience for travellers, as well as staff, to encounter the beauty of this area…”
Landscaping across the terraces draws on the ecoregions surrounding Pittsburgh. The UPMC Terrace evokes the rivers and rolling hills of the Western Allegheny Plateau, while the airside terraces take inspiration from the rugged plateaus and exposed rock formations of the Central Appalachians.
Samantha Partington, Technical Director of OJB Studios, the project’s landscape architects, said: “We brought in some interesting sandstone from a local quarry and used it as cladding on the walls.”
If wellbeing, orientation, connection with nature and quality of experience is also essential, then these spaces become necessary again.”
Repurposing residual terminal space
The terraces formed part of the terminal’s original architectural concept of a “pavilion in the woods”, rather than being later additions.
They also serve a functional purpose. The UPMC Terrace sits above the new terminal’s baggage handling room. Carolyn Sponza, Managing Director, Studio Director and Principal at Gensler’s Pittsburgh office, said: “That allowed us to use what would have been expensive underused roof space for a human-focused use instead.”
The airside terraces use pockets of space created by building the new landside terminal next to the existing one.
“The existing building looked like an ‘X’ and we didn’t need to fill in all the residual space between the new building and the X,” said Sponza. “So there were two very interesting little pieces of space that have two levels to them because the levels of the two buildings are different.”
Rather than building walls between the two structures, the team used the change in floor level to create open spaces referencing western Pennsylvania’s topography.
Luis Vidal, lead designer and architect for the terminal, said such spaces were once common at airports but disappeared as terminals prioritised efficiency, security and passenger processing.
“The key question now is how do we define what is necessary? If wellbeing, orientation, connection with nature and quality of experience is also essential, then these spaces become necessary again,” he said.
Cassotis added: “We are one of the few airports in the United States that has access to the outdoors like this without the cost of entering; you don’t have to pay, you don’t have to be a member of a certain club. The terraces are redefining what it means to be an airport.”
Other US airports offering outdoor spaces include San Francisco International Airport (SFO), Denver International Airport (DEN), San Diego International Airport (SAN) and Austin-Bergstrom International Airport (AUS).
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