‘Gateway to the Menai’ Part 2 Project 2006 Mark Jones Liverpool John Moores University Liverpool | UK The project assumes improvement in aviation technology – aircraft safer, more precise, less polluting, more efficient and quieter. It poses the question as to whether land surrounding airports can be habitable and active instead of being no-go areas. The ‘gateway’ is a destination, associated with an aviation museum, a championship golf course and a transport hub. Design elements are manipulated into a reconstructed landscape, used to inform routes and journeys. The terminal is morphed into this landscape, evoking a quarry-like experience. Other forms are inspired by waves and leaves, reflecting a rich natural environment nearby and proximity to the sea. The Menai, one of the fastest moving tidal waters in the UK, divides and links Anglesey and Wales. In the true territory that should define the government’s initiative to steer northern cities towards becoming viable attractors modifying the magnet of the South-East, it boasts Telford’s chain bridge, much else from Pevsner and an old airstrip among barren lands. Part of a larger strategy, this project rethinks functions and creates a hybrid, the airport becomes a venue, the museum becomes a kindergarten, the golf course a 7000 metre challenge, the surrounding farms become the hotels and some fields the car parks.