Pitkin County picks company for airport terminal design

Pitkin County has projected the design window of the modernized Aspen/Pitkin County Airport will begin between the fall and the winter of this year. 

With that timeline fast approaching, Pitkin County Commissioners have moved forward with selecting a design firm and, on Tuesday, met with one of their chosen firms to begin discussions on the airport modernization’s design goals, costs, and challenges. 

“We believe strongly in sustainability, and it’s one of the things that is kind of a hallmark of ZGF,” said Sharron van der Muelen, managing partner at ZGF.

ZGF is an architecture and design firm that will focus exclusively on airport terminal design. A separate firm has been chosen for the runway. 

ZGF is based in Portland, Oregon, and had a hand in designing the main terminal at the Portland International Airport, as well as other mass timber projects in New York City, Boulder, Colorado, Barcelona, Spain, and others. 

Mass timber was a topic of discussion at the introduction meeting between the commissioners and the architects, as it is something that ZGF is familiar with and that they see as a potential option for the airport terminal. 

The structural material is made from glueing together wood to create massive beams, and has been hailed for its relatively small carbon impact compared to steel and concrete. 

“This was one of the first modern mass timber structures using cross laminated timbers,” said Chris Chatto, sustainability design lead at ZGF, while speaking about the Rocky Mountain Institute building in Basalt that ZGF helped design. “And not only did it reduce the carbon emissions of the structure, but it creates a much more natural (feel).”

Commissioners had questions for the ZGF team ranging from logistical and legal questions about various proposals for the building to concerns about whether framing this as a sustainability project would affect Pitkin County’s ability to get funding from the current administration.

Commissioner Francie Jacober harped on the latter point, drawing attention to the fact that the Trump administration might not be drawn to give grants to projects that focus so heavily on “sustainability” and “environmentalism.” 

“The people who are reading grants right now in D.C. aren’t particularly drawn to that kind of language, so I’m a little worried about the success of our grant applications,” said Jacober. 

“The framing that we are starting to use is independence, right?” responded Paul Schwer, sustainable engineering lead. “Energy independence, a lot of people want that for your home, for your community. Why not?” 

Pitkin County will be accepting public input at various forums during the design process, and it will be ZGF’s responsibility to bring those comments to life. 

Through three public forums, ZGF plans to create three concepts and ultimately narrow down to one design that incorporates feedback from those three sessions. 

“So by the end of the year, … we’ll be trying to kind of corral into one main idea that we will then go ahead into schematic design to develop further,” concluded ZGF’s Project Manager Tony Martinez.