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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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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