Invited by New York Magazine to contribute to a visioning study for mass-timber construction, the SHoP team responsible for the LaGuardia Airport Master Plan developed a design for a model terminal. Leveraging the ability of contemporary wood construction to serve at once as an efficient and environmentally responsive structural solution and a comfortingly familiar interior surface, we worked to create a comprehensive system that fully integrates lighting, air and acoustic considerations. The goal was to minimize interruptions to the space’s inherent calm, using the special “honesty” of mass timber to reduce the layers of artificiality that can so often exist between a space, its structural elements and occupants’ direct experience of it. Looking at ways to let the natural qualities of wood drive its form and function, we created an alternative to the visual and literal noise common across so much of the air travel experience today—suggesting a new vision for the way New Yorkers inhabit our city.