"In 2015, SHoP was selected as a finalist in the Master Plan Design Competition for New York's LaGuardia Airport. Launched by Governor Andrew Cuomo and Vice President Joseph Biden, the goal was to reimagine the entirety of LGA as a world-class facility, offering a unified terminal environment, improved airside and landside operations, and creating an appropriate gateway to New York City.

SHoP started with the needs of the Queens community. The approaches to LGA were entirely reconceived to eliminate truck traffic on local streets, resulting as well in improved clarity and convenience for drivers entering from the adjacent highway. Two shoreside parks with soft tidal edges were proposed as part of a comprehensive approach to environmental responsibility that also included installations of a façade-integrated solar technology developed by a SHoP-led partnership, and an on-site power plant designed to also serve the community grid in case of emergency.

Responding to LaGuardia?s history of delays due to tarmac crowding, we proposed the gates to be arranged around two island concourses. This innovative layout eliminates bottlenecks caused by the existing peninsular plan, opening several new routes to the principal runways. Ferry service is brought directly into a new intermodal center, leaving the historic Marine Air Terminal free to be repurposed as an aeronautical museum at the center of a new recreation and education campus.

In order to encourage line-of-sight wayfinding clarity between all parts of the complex?and to achieve the related improvements in passenger flow?we used bridges rather than tunnels to cross the proposed dual taxiways. This practical solution (saving a significant amount in projected construction time and cost over tunnels at this flood-prone location) was also the right poetic solution: arriving passengers crossing the bridges to the two linked head-houses will be able to take in a sweeping view of Queens and the Manhattan skyline,"