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Beck Named a Finalist at UBER’s 2018 Elevate Skyport Challenge

  • May 10, 2018

Uber announced The Beck Group as one of six prestigious finalists for its Elevate Skyport Challenge at its 2nd annual Elevate Summit. The Beck Group’s innovative Skyport design, “The Hive,” draws inspiration from the transportation hubs of the past and the beauty of hexagonal form found in hives created by honeybees.

“Its shape is organic, practical and serves as a metaphor for activity,” said Principal Architect Michael Kaiser. “Skyport will be scalable, a key factor, as this type of transportation grows in popularity among Uber’s ever-mobile clientele.” Kaiser presented The Beck Group’s plan in front of Uber CEO Dara Khosrowshahi and other executives Wednesday.

Uber eVTOLS, much like bees, will fly away from the Hive and return in a never-ending cycle of activity. The shape is flexible and scalable to accommodate 150 take-offs and landings per hour and can be scaled to up to 1,000 trips per hour.

“It’s an air-taxi vertical take-off and landing hub for the North Texas area,” Associate Principal Tim Shippey explained to WFAA. The design process integrated input across The Beck Group’s regional offices and was a collaboration between seven core team members.

Uber has plans for high-volume operations of uberAIR networks in and around cities, so the challenge offered leading architecture and engineering firms the opportunity to create conceptual designs that show what take-off and landing Skyports for Uber’s new aircrafts could look like.

 

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