One frame, built the way Chicago builds. A media architecture for O'Hare International Airport, designed to belong to every terminal and to grow with ORDNext.
Signature moments
A first look at the landmark pieces: one for each great space at O'Hare, all built from the same frame.
The idea
In the 1880s Chicago gave the world the steel frame: a skeleton that carried the building so the walls could open to light. It became the Chicago window, the Chicago School and, on the lakefront, the calm precision of Mies.
CHICAGO FRAME brings that idea to O'Hare's media. Every display, from a single totem to a two-story landmark, is carried by one crisp steel frame. The screen floats inside it. Light touches only the steel. The architecture of each terminal stays the hero.
CHICAGO FRAME replaces today's patchwork of formats, wraps and lightboxes with one coherent family. There is less clutter and more architecture, and every piece earns its place.
It is not a new product dropped into the airport. It is a single, disciplined language that converses with Helmut Jahn's Terminal 1, with SOM's Concourse D and with Studio Gang's Global Terminal, and that can be built, maintained and evolved through a decade of construction.
Media steps back from O'Hare's landmarks and lets the architecture breathe. Fewer, better, more deliberate pieces.
A single kit of parts with two finishes and an adaptive shade, so every unit belongs to its place and to the system.
The same language runs from today's terminals to Concourse D and the Global Terminal, phased and future-proofed.
Inspiration
O'Hare is a museum of Chicago architecture, from Jahn's light and steel to HOK's sculpted Terminal 5, SOM's Concourse D and Studio Gang's Global Terminal. CHICAGO FRAME takes one idea from each and ties them together with the city's oldest one: the frame.
Terminal 1 · Helmut Jahn · 1987
White exposed trusses, round cut-outs and a vaulted rhythm that recalls Chicago's great railway halls. O'Hare's best-loved artwork, "Sky's the Limit," is light in motion.
White finish · light on the steel, never on the screen
Terminal 5 expansion · HOK
Sweeping white forms, generous height and ceilings punctuated with light. A quiet, gallery-like backdrop where every object is placed with intent.
Restraint · fewer, larger pieces · graphite or white to suit
Concourse D · SOM
Branching tree-like columns, a timber lattice roof and a Midwestern landscape palette, carrying forward the site's origin as Orchard Field.
White-oak shades · the Drum, the Ring, the portal, the two-story face
Global Terminal · Studio ORD (Studio Gang)
Three branches meeting like the Chicago River, under a pleated timber roof with Y-shaped columns, groves of trees and an oculus that references the stars of the Chicago flag.
Signature scale · the same kit, sized to the space
The Chicago frame · Mies van der Rohe, S.R. Crown Hall, 1956
From Jenney's steel skeleton to Mies, Chicago architecture shows how it stands up: square sections, honest joints, nothing applied. This is the common thread across every terminal. Photo: Pete Sieger.
Crisp square posts · floating panels · no boxes
The design language
The rules stay fixed. Finish, shade and scale adapt to each place, so the family reads as one whether it stands on a terrazzo floor or hangs from a timber roof.
Crisp square-section steel posts and beams, about five inches, with sharp 90° edges. Posts and beams only: no boxes, bezels or housings. Power and data run concealed inside the posts.
Every screen floats inside the frame with an even ¾-inch open reveal. Wayfinding is a separate panel with a clear gap, carrying direction, time and weather, so it reads as a civic layer and not as advertising.
The only lit element is a concealed 3000K line that grazes the frame. Nothing falls on the screen, the floor or the traveller. At night the system reads like architecture, not signage.
Louvered canopies under skylights. White-oak slats in timber terminals. Side or no shade where daylight comes from windows or not at all. The shade is the part that adapts.
Satin white where the architecture is white: Terminal 1 and ORDNext. Graphite where it is dark or older. The frame never changes shape; it changes colour to belong.
A plinth with a brushed-stainless kick band and recessed toe takes the knock and makes each unit appear to float. Overhead pieces keep at least seven to eight feet clear.
Anatomy
Every product, from the totem to the ring, is assembled from the same parts: shade, beam, floating wayfinding, light line, floating screen, concealed rails and plinth. Scale and finish change; the parts do not.
The family
A complete kit of parts, from workhorse units for every gate to signature pieces that give each terminal a moment of its own.
Before / after
Drag each image to compare today's conditions with CHICAGO FRAME. Where a direct overlay isn't possible, the two views are shown side by side.
Terminals 1 · 2 · 3
Terminal 1 · Concourse B
A 32:9 LED ribbon hung from Jahn's white trusses on two slim posts. No bottom rail, a floating navy wayfinding strip below, and a louvered shade that stripes the beam with skylight.
Terminal 1 · Concourse C
The sign group becomes one suspended rectangle: double-sided LED walls between white corner posts, with digital wayfinding floating beneath.
Terminal 1 · Concourse C · Option B
A seamless LED ring floating above the existing wayfinding, crowned by a louvered shade that echoes Jahn's round geometry. The signs stay exactly as they are.
Terminal 1 · Elevator corner
A static lightbox becomes a seamless corner of light, set deep in a white shadow-box frame on a stainless plinth. The exit sign and circulation stay clear.
Escalator well
The end wall becomes one continuous image that bends softly around the corners as travellers descend. The apron windows above stay clear.
Escalator well · Option B
The same immersive wall turning the corners on crisp facets instead of a curve, with a warm light line tracing its top edge.
Terminal 3 · Concourse H
A double-sided blade on a slim white post, projecting into the line of travel with its own louvered cap. Read head-on from both directions.
Terminal 3 · Concourse H · Option B
One continuous curved LED ribbon weaving past the column line under a louvered shade, turning the row of columns into a single flowing canvas.
Terminal 3 · flag hall
The fabric flags and column wraps give way to a calm double row of digital blades, one above every column. Each is fixed to the soffit wall, self-supporting with no load on the vault, and floats at least 8 ft above the floor under its own louvered cap. The copper globe stays the hero.
Security Checkpoint 5
Printed banners become slim LED that turns the wall's edge, held by a 1½-inch white trim and nothing else.
Connector corridor
The existing LED wall is reframed as a single seamless screen inside one white frame. No divisions, one horizon.
Concourse corridor
An off-the-shelf monitor becomes a framed system unit, with posts, a kick rail and floating wayfinding carrying time and weather.
Concourse C rotunda (renovation vision)
A deep LED band set into the elliptical soffit, shaded by radial louvers so it reads in full skylight. The Jahn ring beam and oculus stay untouched.
Concourse D
Concourse D · walkway
A 32:9 screen held close to the ceiling, with more than seven feet of clearance and no shade, because the ceiling does the work.
Concourse D · window wall
Transparent LED aligned to the building's structural bays, high above eye level, so the view of the airfield remains.
Concourse D · window lounge
In the calm zones the architecture breathes. A single white-and-oak totem, free-standing, carrying art and gate information.
Concourse D · holdroom
Shown at eye level. A seamless 360° LED cylinder on a stainless-banded plinth, under a round white-oak canopy that echoes the roof.
Concourse D · north atrium
A suspended digital ring beneath the oculus that you can look into from the mezzanine, sheltered by a halo of floating timber rings that bring the ceiling down into the space.
Concourse D · bridge
An oak-trimmed ultra-wide screen marks the threshold, small against the vault and never competing with the white structure.
Concourse D · main hall
One flat, two-story digital face between white posts, tucked beneath the pleated roof at the head of the central walkway.
Design options
Alternatives explored for key sites. Each is built from the same parts, so the choice can follow the architecture, budget and phasing.
Engineering concept
A modular steel system with concealed services, built to the airport's standards for clearance, egress and life safety.
Square HSS steel posts and beams, powder-coated. Floor units stand on a ballasted or anchored plinth. Hung units take short hangers to primary structure. Where a roof cannot take load, as in the flag hall, units are self-supporting from the floor or from walls.
Power and network run concealed inside the posts and hangers. No visible conduit or cable. Each unit has a single service connection at the base or ceiling.
Direct-view LED for large and curved formats; high-brightness LCD or fine-pitch LED for totems. Ambient-light sensing for brightness; louvers where skylight falls on glass.
Overhead units keep the bottom edge at least 7–8 ft above the floor, beyond the ADA 80-inch minimum for protruding objects. Nothing narrows egress paths or covers life-safety signage.
Concealed 3000K linear LED with tight optics, dimmable and scheduled with terminal lighting. It lights the frame only, never the screen or the floor.
Front-serviceable screens and removable shade modules. Common parts across the family, so one spares inventory serves every terminal.
Concept stage. All dimensions, materials and methods are assumptions for discussion, to be validated by structural, electrical and fire engineers and by the CDA design and sign-group standards. Wayfinding content and data feeds are subject to CDA approval.
Growing with O'Hare
O'Hare is entering its most important architectural decade. The frame stays; finish, shade and scale adapt as each new building opens.
Today
Re-frame the best existing sites in white and graphite. Construction walls become storytelling surfaces.
Late 2028
Opening-day family in white and oak: totems, ultra-wide hung units, the Drum, digital glass, the portal, the two-story face and the Ring.
c. 2029–34
The same kit of parts, scaled to Studio ORD's architecture and developed with the design team.
Beyond
The same kit of parts, ready to adopt. No redesign required.
Today's terminals.
Concourse D and E.
Concourse D: landmark face rising from seating and planting.
Next steps
01
Align with the architect teams on placement, finishes and the white/graphite zone map.
02
Structural, electrical and fire review of each unit type; hanger and plinth details.
03
Sign-group review of integrated wayfinding; clearance, egress and lighting approvals.
04
Full-scale mock-up of the floor totem and one signature piece with Chicago fabrication partners.