What airports can teach you about interior design

The world is crammed with impressive interior design, whether you’re swanning through a restaurant in Tokyo, entering a grand opera house in Vienna or enjoying a drink at a beach-side bar in Australia. What’s more, the term interior design means something different to everyone – it’s all about what pleases your inner aesthete.

Most people don’t quite realise this. Instead, they rely on the wisdom of Kirsty Alsop or old reruns of Changing Rooms to formulate their opinions about what does and doesn’t constitute good taste. The television, which has been a civilising influence since the mid-twentieth century, has become the fountain of all interior design knowhow.

But we’re here to change that.

We want to show you that interior design is all around you, no matter where you are in the world. To prove our point, let’s discuss the humble airport.

That’s right – airports are meticulously designed not only to get you from A to B, but also to ensure that you have a cornucopia of aesthetic pleasures to enjoy while you journey.

So let’s take a look at some of the best and see what they can teach us.

Edinburgh Airport

Edinburgh Airport isn’t only home to SkyParkSecure.com’s parking service, Hudson’s Grill’s delectable American-cum-Scotland cuisine or Luckie Bean’s deliciously bitter coffee beans. It’s also a masterpiece of design.

Its terminal entrances offer a striking colour palette of deep purple and pure white, and its amenities are neatly delineated to make navigation easy.

The lesson: being able to find what you need is a must in design.

Munich Airport

Munich Airport isn’t a static object when it comes to design – it’s a constantly changing building that tailors itself to the time of the year.

While some airports might play ‘All I want for Christmas is You’ on the sound system when the most festive time of the year comes around, Munich Airport installs two ice rinks in its foyer. When summer approaches, the airport furnishes the foyer with outdoor seating areas and pleasing greenery.

The lesson: your home can be changed any time you like, both to fit your mood and to match the time of the year.

Los Angeles Airport

While you’d expect a bustle of palm trees outside LA’s most populous airport, the most striking design feature of its exterior is its many towering light sculptures.

These large blue towers of light are dotted beside the freeway around LAX, turning a potentially ugly area of traffic jams into a place of beauty.

The lesson: effectively placed lighting can make a huge difference.

As this triad of terrifically-designed airports proves, it’s perfectly possible to make these portals to different worlds beautiful as well as practical.

That’s our list! What design tips have you gleaned from airports? Let us know in the comments below!