ABSTRACT
This chapter introduces Amsterdam Airport Schiphol, the key parties in design process and their priorities. It discusses Schiphol's transformation over the last twenty years into "more than just an airport", a process that one could observe at many other airports. This transformation is key for understanding the motivations and arguments of different key stakeholders in the airport design and management process. The "Don't Worry, Be Happy" principle was first used by Schiphol's interior designers in the 1960s after they had observed passenger behaviour. The chapter outlines disagreements between parties over the state of mind, behaviour and needs of passengers, linking the argumentation of the parties to their agendas and their ways of measuring their success. It concludes by reflecting upon the consequences of such disagreements amongst design professionals and foregrounds the questions that this paradoxical and impossible portrait of a mobile subject evokes'.
