Would you ever go to an airport just to hang out? Chances are, unless you’re an avid people-watcher, the answer to that question is no. Modern airports aren’t typically pleasant places to be, and most of us associate them with lengthy lines, security pat-downs, cramped gates and possibly a harried sprint to a terminal that seems like it’s on another continent to catch a connecting flight.

But some experts in aviation and architecture say all that is about to be history as airports adapt to evolving technology. In fact, airports around the world are already incorporating features like automated baggage checks, free wifi that actually works, better wayfinding and even checking in with selfies – and there are more advancements and improvements on the way.

Airports as Attractions

In Singapore, people really do go to the Changi Airport for a good time, even when they’re not traveling. While airports are usually transient spaces, whisking you through them on the way to somewhere else, Changi is a destination in its own right with a giant slide, kinetic rain sculptures, a butterfly garden, a sunflower garden, free massages, a huge swimming pool and some of the island nation’s best shopping. In early 2019, its new “Jewel” addition will open, offering a lush five-story terraced garden, a 40-meter-tall waterfall, a sculpture made of four gigantic slides and other attractions dreamed up by architect Moshe Safdie as a “magical garden.”

Changi may be an extreme example – it was named best airport in the world six years in a row by Skytrax, after all – but other airports are taking a similar approach as their operators take cues from the hospitality industry and shift toward more customer-friendly features and designs. The Seoul Incheon airport in South Korea has its own indoor skating rink, you can catch a movie at the Hong Kong airport’s IMAX movie theater, and the San Francisco airport has a yoga room. In the near future, many airports in larger cities will likely expand these kinds of amenities as they attempt to rebrand as community hubs.

Biometric Boarding

Ready or not, here come biometric identity verification systems that will make the process of checking in and going through security a lot smoother, albeit in a way that stokes privacy concerns among some travelers. You might not have to go through a security line at all, as airports integrate technology that constantly scans you and your bags as you walk through the complex. Theoretically, that means airports will be more secure from the moment you walk onto the property.

Heathrow Airport in London is already testing biometric identification gates that use facial recognition to match flyers to their passports, immigration photos or visas, and British Airways has expanded the use of these gates to airports in New York, Miami and Orlando. The airline claims this process allows them to board twice the customers in the same amount of time as traditional methods. Delta has already integrated facial recognition into some of its bag drop stations, Dubai is using the technology at security checkpoints by passing flyers through face-scanning tunnels and JetBlue offers a biometric ID process in which customers step up to a camera and take a photo to board.

All of this means airports could be able to devote a lot less square footage to queues, opening that space to alternate uses – like making the rest of the facility more comfortable.

User-Centric Designs

Just like customers at any other business, air travelers want speed, efficiency, cleanliness, pleasant ambiance and great service, and that includes the choice to either use self-service kiosks or interact with an attentive and friendly customer service agent if they need more help.

Some airport executives stress a desire to treat passengers more like “guests,” regardless of the class of their ticket or their frequent flyer status. That may mean doing away with grand lobbies full of individual airline check-in counters and all of their snaking lines in favor of a more open system of kiosks and employees scattered around, approaching people who seem like they could use some assistance. Travelers already prefer self-check methods to interacting with agents before they fly. Some airports are even experimenting with “virtual” boarding agents that are just holograms.

As lobbies shrink, airports could expand their small, uncomfortable gates – where passengers spend the majority of their time – or shift their layouts altogether to make navigating these often massive facilities a lot easier. That might mean pod-like mass transit systems instead of trains to get you straight to your gate a lot faster. Dubai’s redesign will involve a format that eliminates the need to ever walk more than 400 meters (about 1300 feet) to catch a connecting flight. And while it wasn’t selected for the final design, UNStudio’s proposal for the Taiwan Taoyuan airport teases a highly efficient terminal design with a small footprint for the shortest possible walking distances.

Other high-traffic airports in cities like Los Angeles and Istanbul are currently undergoing renovations that prioritize efficiency in similar ways, and in the future, we might get electronic beacons or personalized wayfinding sent to our phones and other devices so we can navigate in a hurry.

Seamless Integration with Future Tech

How will airports adapt to a near future full of driverless electric cars, fleets of electric aircraft, increasingly car-free cities and other changes to how we travel on a daily basis? We may see airport parking garages looking more like ghost towns or devoted largely to electric car sharing services as people drive their own vehicles less often, and those garages could potentially be converted to additional terminals.

Drop-off and pickup areas are likely to expand to accommodate all the passengers using Uber, Lyft and similar services. The new Oslo Airport City (OAC) is being designed in anticipation of all these changes, including offering unprecedented access to public transport nodes, a must as the city removes cars from its city center.

Form and Function Fused

One thing airports could do with all that newly available space is pay a little more attention to aesthetics without sacrificing functionality. New airports in major cities (with the budgets to match) will likely get even more complex in their designs while incorporating passenger-friendly features like natural light and plenty of air-filtering vegetation.

Gates may be larger and more comfortable, ceilings higher, the ambiance more pleasant. We could see more parks, some of them even inhabited by birds or other wildlife, like at Singapore’s Changi. In Bangkok, a new terminal designed by DBALP will focus on offering a forest-like environment full of lush greenery and even a cascading waterfall.

Rather than the warehouse-like boxes they’ve been in the past, airports of the future could be showcases of modern architecture, perhaps celebrating the talent of local firms – as is the case at Croatia’s Zagreb Airport, which chose native firms Kincl + Neidhardt + Institute IGH – or becoming living works of art by world-class talent like Zaha Hadid Architects. The latter firm’s new international terminal at the Beijing airport will be the largest in the world once complete, and even imagery captured of the structure halfway through the building process is stunning. The airport is expected to open in 2019.

Above all, airports of the future will probably have to be as flexible as they can be to continue adapting to a constantly changing world.

All we wanted was flying cars and machines that clean up after us, and all we’ve gotten is a nightmare of dystopian privacy-shattering technology set against a hellscape of irreversible climate change. Welcome to the future! Humanoid robots can run and do backflips, you can’t tell the difference between an android and a human on the phone, video evidence can no longer be trusted, cops can find you among millions using facial recognition or DNA, and soon your employers might be able to read your thoughts. Wheee, this is fun!

Google’s AI Assistant Sounds Exactly Like a Human

‘Duplex’ is a highly unassuming name for a rather horrifying new piece of technology from Google. The experimental voice-based digital assistant service debuted at the company’s I/O conference last week, and at first, its roster of functions seemed ordinary enough. It can write emails automatically? Cool. It can make appointments for you? Great, who likes talking on the phone these days? But then the demonstration started. The assistant dialed up a hair salon and chatted with the receptionist in such a natural way, it’s almost impossible to tell it’s not human. The effect was so shocking and produced such an uproar on the internet, Google had to immediately release a statement that its AI voice would always identify itself to humans. Sure. If you say so.

Boston Dynamics Robots Can Now Run, Jump & Do Backflips

Hey, remember when we used to laugh about how all the weird faceless robots made by Boston Dynamics could barely remain in an upright position? Well, here’s an update. Some things have changed since the days of robots falling over all the time. For example, “the world’s most dynamic humanoid” Atlas can now run, jump and do backflips, feats impressive (and terrifying) enough to put the likes of Elon Musk on edge. One of the uses envisioned for Atlas in the future is on the front lines of war. Considering the rapid militarization of police forces in the United States, it’s not that far of a jump to imagine a RoboCop scenario spinning out of that.

This is nothing. In a few years, that bot will move so fast you’ll need a strobe light to see it. Sweet dreams… https://t.co/0MYNixQXMw

— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) November 26, 2017

Meanwhile, the company’s dog-like Spot Mini is now capable of taking itself on walks, and it’s set to go on sale to the public in 2019. Why? It’s kind of unclear. The company doesn’t offer very many practical reasons to own a robot dog, which is not particularly cuddly, but it’s not hard to see how it would be a great way to get people more comfortable with this kind of tech, and allow more of it into our homes and lives.

Advances in Facial Recognition Technology

China’s police force is ahead of the game when it comes to propelling us all toward the dystopian future we fear. They’ve got some of the most advanced facial recognition surveillance in the world, with more than 170 million cameras installed around the country, and they use it for ‘crimes’ as minor as jaywalking. In a recent demonstration, a BBC reporter’s headshot was uploaded into the system to show just how quickly the cops could find him in a city of 4.3 million. It took seven minutes. Just a few weeks ago, a suspect wanted for ‘economic crimes’ was found by cameras at a concert surrounded by 60,000 people. But it’s not just the po-po that want to put this technology to use. Among lots of other insidious invasions, like embeddable implants, it’s being touted as a convenient way to avoid carrying paper or even phones. Ticketmaster is working with a facial recognition company called Blink Identity to associate facial data with tickets for seamless concert entry, drink purchases, VIP area entry and more. There’s definitely no way that can go wrong.

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Architecture has looked much the same since early humans first began constructing their own shelter, but that could change soon with the introduction of new materials and technologies producing almost alien-like forms. Woven carbon fiber, ultra-strong but amazingly thin concrete, transparent wood and 3D-printed sandstone are among the innovations that could break free of the traditional constraints and result in a new era of lightweight, durable, versatile forms in all sorts of organic and mathematical shapes.

Super Wood, Nano Wood & Transparent Wood

Wood is an ancient material, and it isn’t going anywhere. Not only is wood construction enjoying a renaissance of sorts, with super-tall wood structures planned around the world, it’s seeing fascinating modifications that make it stronger and more versatile than ever. Researchers at the University of Maryland have created a ‘super wood’ that’s stronger than steel but six times lighter. First, they boil the wood in a mixture of sodium sulfite and sodium hydroxide to partially remove the lignin fiber and hemicellulose, and then hot-press it to crush the cell walls, creating durable nano fibers. This process could be carried out on wood species that are traditionally too soft for many applications, potentially shifting the entire logging industry.

The same research team also transformed wood into an insulating material that’s stronger and more environmentally friendly than styrofoam using a similar process. This ‘nano wood’ is created by removing the lignin (which gives woods its color and rigidity) as well as some of the short fibers “that make up the scaffolding-like base structure of the wood,” they explain. “The aligned cellulose fibers then bond with each other and results in a high mechanical strength.” When pressed in a certain direction it’s 30 times stronger than typical thermal insulation materials and a lot more insulating (blocking at least 10 degrees more heat than the record-setting best simulator, silica aerogel.)

Oh yeah, and then there’s transparent wood. When the lignin is leached out using that same chemical bath that’s used to make ‘super wood,’ and then the wood is soaked in epoxy, it turns the wood clear. The result looks like plastic, is stronger than glass, won’t shatter on impact and actually biodegrades. While not fully transparent, it’s able to transmit up to 90 percent of light.

Fungus-Based Self-Healing Concrete

Concrete may rarely need maintenance in the future thanks to a special species of fungi known as Trichoderma reesei, which acts as a sealing agent when added to the mix. Taking inspiration from living creatures’ ability to regenerate tissue, researchers at Binghamton University determined that the fungus lies dormant until a new crack appears, at which point its spores germinate, expand and produce calcium carbonate to fill the crack in response to oxygen and water. Considering how much infrastructure in the United States is currently crumbling, it could make a huge difference in the durability of what we build in the future.

“Without proper treatment, cracks tend to progress further and eventually require costly repair,” they explain. “If micro-cracks expand and reach the steel reinforcement, not only the concrete will be attacked, but also the reinforcement will be corroded, as it is exposed to water, oxygen, possibly CO2 and chlorides, leading to structural failure.”

The way the fungi works, “When the cracks are completely filled and ultimately no more water or oxygen can enter inside, the fungi will again form spores. As the environmental conditions become favorable in later stages, the spores could be awakened again.”

Thin-Film Photovoltaics Embedded in Concrete

Not only are we likely to see a lot more sculptural structures made of incredibly thin layers of concrete thanks to digital design and fabrication techniques, but they could be pre-embedded with thin film solar cells. This prototype was created by researchers at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology Zurich with a surface thickness of around two inches and edges just an inch thick. Mixed within the concrete are heating and cooling coils and insulation, and the formwork is made of a polymer textile stretched across cable netting.

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The automation of many of our jobs – even those that have long seemed safe – is fully inevitable at this point. One study predicts that about 38 percent of American jobs will be at high risk of automation by the early 2030s, which is not that far away. We’re asked to trust that future work could be ‘liberating,’ but considering the way corporations tend to operate, it’s not hard to see why the masses are terrified that robots will soon leave us unemployed and unable to provide for ourselves and our families.

But at the recent World Economic Forum Annual Meeting in January 2018, experts imagined the kinds of jobs that will be around – and now we have visualizations of what they could look like. In fact, those experts stated that 65% of children in school today will have jobs that don’t currently exist.

In a scene that definitely looks straight out of a sci-fi movie, a worker sits in a glass pod high over a city, overseeing a 3D printer in the midst of building a superstructure. A ‘landfill recycler’ salvages existing materials from landfills to be integrated into new products while sitting atop something that looks like a gigantic vacuum hose. On serene turquoise waters, a ‘blockchain banking engineer’ fine-tunes a floating machine that will give people in remote locations access to secure banking.

It might be a robot operating on this woman in a rural setting, but he’s got the holographic head of the real surgeon who’s carrying out the procedure from thousands of miles away. A ‘public technology ethicist’ evaluates new technology before it goes live to determine its benefits to the public. And finally, the operator of a 3D scanning machine captures entire historically significant buildings to ensure that even if they’re demolished, they’re preserved in perpetuity.

These illustrations were produced by AKQA London together with Salt and Pepper Creative Studio based on the World Economic Forum panelists’ predictions. Concept artist Florian de Gesincourt created the first sketches, and London retouching studio Happy Finish colored and perfected them. The series was produced in a mere 120 hours in the midst of the forum so attendees could see them. They’re a pretty good reminder that the future is closer than we think.

Ultra-strong and incredibly versatile carbon fiber can be woven by robots in a scale as small as furniture and as large as a stadium, a technological advance that could represent the fourth industrial revolution. This fiber-reinforced composite is typically formed in molds, but programming robots to weave it could totally change the way objects and buildings are designed and created. These carbon fiber creations represent this new construction method as well as 3D-printed carbon fiber products and the more time-consuming technique of hand-wrapping up to a mile of carbon fiber for just one piece of furniture.

Robot-Woven Pavilion by ICD + ITKE

Architect and researcher Achim Menges, who heads up the Institute for Computational Design (ICD) at the University of Stuttgart, is developing software to make robotic construction more intuitive, and his team has built a series of carbon fiber pavilions to show off the technology. We’re at a phase where the full capabilities of the material and method haven’t yet been unlocked, he says, because experiments are still mimicking old materials. To build the pavilions, they robots draw lengths of carbon and glass fiber through a resin bath and wind it around metal scaffolding in a particular pattern. The resin-coated structures are cured in a massive oven and then detached from the framework.

3D Printed Cirin Rubber Band Car

Carbon fiber has been around for decades, typically made by bonding carbon atoms into crystals and then forming the result into loose or woven carbon filaments. It’s often mixed with polymers to create composite materials, and we’re used to seeing it in cars, gloves and all sorts of everyday items, but new technology is broadening its applications. Take, for example, the Cirin, a modern take on the rubber band-powered toy car. A group of college students at the Art Center College of Design in Pasadena, CA made its shell with a 3D printer, giving us a peek at the capabilities of this particular forward-thinking combo.

Hammock-Shaped Carbon Fiber Bathtub

One example of the ‘mold’ technique of forming and curing carbon fiber is this stunning hanging bathtub by Splinter Works, which is fixed to walls with steel brackets and paired with a tall faucet. Layers of carbon fiber are arranged on top of a foam core to insulate the tub, which can be adjusted in size to fit a specific space.

Carbon Fiber Eames Sofa

Designer Matthew Strong replicates the classic Eames shell sofa of the late 1950s in carbon fiber form, but instead of using a robot to weave it, he has woven it himself by hand using a traditional chair caning pattern for a lightweight yet strong result.

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