Originally Posted by saschasegan

There was a lot of tweaking and balancing based on what I perceived to be levels of expectations. For instance, NBO and not DKR because NBO has pretensions of being a major global hub, and DKR seems to only have pretensions of being a hole in the ground.

That's also a big reason why the NYC airports were so heavily represented. NYC "has pretensions of" being, mmm, a global financial hub, global tourist center, where the UN is, stuff like that. So its gateways should be held to a high standard. Which I think we can all safely agree they do not meet.

The award for Jeddah/Mecca was in large part because it so overturns our expectations of airport design, and those tent-cones do an awesome job of natural air conditioning. That list was "most beautiful" rather than "most functional." The "worst" list was just "worst (calibrated by expectations.)"