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June 2008


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Reaching For The Skies

The international airports getting bigger and better

With the need to accommodate ever-bigger planes and increased traffic, airport expansion is a huge business. Claire Wrathall looks at some of the latest projects.

ABU DHABI
As one of the world’s fastest-growing cities, it’s hardly surprising that its airport, which opened in 1982, is also expanding at speed. Terminal 2 opened in 2005, but a Terminal 3 and plans for a second runway are already underway; a project expected to cost €4.3bn and raise capacity to 20 million by 2010.

MUSCAT
Oman’s main international airport, Muscat International Airport, has unveiled plans that will enable it to boost capacity to 12 million passengers a year by 2011, and 48 million by 2050, by adding a new terminal designed by the Danish practices COWI and Larsen Architects. The Sultanate is also planning to develop three further airports: an expansion of Salalah International (by the same architects) in the south of the country, as well as new airports for Sohar, north of Muscat on the Gulf of Oman and Duqm, 500km south of the capital.

BEIJING
Not content with Beijing Capital’s International Airport’s new Terminal 3, which opened in March this year, the Chinese Civil Aviation Authority already has its sights set on a second airport for Beijing (due for completion in 2015 though a site has not yet been finalised). This will be just one of a further 97 airports the country plans to build by 2020, 45 of which are intended to open by 2010.

BERLIN
In 2011, Berlin’s three existing airports will close to be replaced by Berlin Brandenburg International, currently under construction and budgeted to cost €2bn. The airport is initially expected to handle 22 million passengers annually, four million more than the current capacity of the three airports combined. Located close to Schönefeld, 20km east of the city centre, it has been designed by Berlin practice JSK International Architekten und Ingenieure. The site can be visited already thanks to the 32m-high BBI Infotower, which contains a visitor centre and observation platform.

DUBAI
Not to be outdone by Abu Dhabi, Dubai is spending €5.07bn on developing Dubai World Central International Airport, a self-styled “urban aviation community” designed by local practice ADPi. Occupying a 140km2 site in Jebel Ali, 40km from Dubai city centre, the airport is due for completion in 2017; it eventually intends to handle 120 million passengers annually as well as 12m tonnes of cargo.

DUBLIN
Delayed by a convoluted planning process, not least objections by Ryanair (which favoured a low-cost facility that it offered to operate itself), Dublin’s Terminal 2 is finally under construction and due to open in April 2010. Designed by London practice Pascall + Watson – which has previously worked on airport projects in Naples, Pisa, Pescara in Italy; Larnaca and Paphos in Cyprus; Podgorica and Tivat in Montenegro; Abu Dhabi; and Oman – the project involves a 75,000m2 terminal building, with a 400m pier and 19 new aircraft stands, and should almost double the airport’s capacity to 35 million passengers a year.

LONDON
Bound to invite comparisons with Beijing’s Terminal 3, Heathrow’s Terminal 5 also opened in March 2008, 19 years after the project was first mooted. The result, designed by Rogers Stirk Harbour + Partners, was worth the wait: a light, airy “loose-fit” structure lit by 5,500 (bomb-proof) glass panels, through which there are views across the Colne Valley, towards Windsor Castle, and as far as the Wembley Arch and the City of London. Unusually, the terminal has a piazza between the terminal and its car park, planted with mature trees, so that passengers can sit out. T5, however, is only the beginning of the transformation of Heathrow. By 2012, Terminal 2 and the Queen’s Building will have been replaced by Heathrow East, designed by Foster + Partners.

ST PETERSBURG
They don’t build mere terminals in Russia. St Petersburg’s main airport, Pulkovo, has commissioned the British practice Grimshaw Architects, best known for the Eden Project in Cornwall, to build a 184,000m2 Airport City at a cost of €450m, due to open in 2011. Its architects describe its as a “new terminal roof and envelope designed to accommodate the extremes of climate experienced by the city” (as well as 17.3 million passengers annually), with 18m bays that will collect snowfall. The airport will also feature a gateway “reminiscent of St Petersburg’s Grand Avenue”, terminating in a large square filled with sculptures representing anchors and the scepter, the city’s emblems.


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