DALLAS, Texas – Many of us grew up watching the primetime cartoon, The Jetsons. It’s a theme song that’s pretty easy to get stuck in your head, and a common childhood dream of having a flying car.
In two years, that dream may become a reality.
This week, Uber unveiled its flying taxi, uberAIR. It’s not exactly like the flying saucers from The Jetsons, but it’s definitely futuristic.
With that, selected architecture firms were asked to design an airport-like building for uberAIR to dock, charge and depart. Six finalists revealed their vision for a Skyport at Uber’s Elevate Summit on Wednesday afternoon. Majority of the final six are companies based in North Texas.
Tim Shippey from Dallas-based Beck Architecture says it’s exciting to think outside the box. He hopes their plan is the one Uber goes with among tough competition. “This is going to be the first realistic version that you can really have a flying car of some type,” he said. Shippey said their Skyport design is based on the idea of a honeycomb. The Beck Group kept it simple and cost-effective.
Gannett Fleming and Pickard Chilton working with Arup are other finalists. And other locally-based finalists include Corgan, Humphreys & Partners Architects and BOKA Powell. All have very innovative and different designs for uberAIR, a product that could be piloted first in Dallas in 2020.