Beijing Airport Terminal 3: Going for the Gold

Thirty-one of the thirty-seven competitive venues of the XXIX Olympiad will be within the boundaries of the host city, Beijing. But the success of each of those thirty-seven competitive venues will depend a great deal on only one of the Olympiad’s non-competitive venues, the vast Beijing Airport Terminal 3 complex scheduled to open in February 2008.

Beijing’s airport, like the city itself, is only becoming more crowded as China takes its place among the economic powers of the 21^st century, and the airports Terminals 1 and 2 are already operating at maximum capacity, yet Beijing’s air traffic continues to grow at an estimated 20% per year. The Olympiad upcoming in August 2008 required an immediate solution, in the form of the $2.8 billion USD Terminal 3.

The architectural creation of Britain’s Norman Foster, Terminal 3 is designed to evoke, in those flying into Beijing, images of ancient Chinese temples and palaces with its enormous sloping golden roof and Chinese red columns. The roof itself was a subject of heated debate between Foster and Bejing officials, who finally settled on a muted gold colour with raised triangles to resemble scales on the back of an airborne dragon.

The roof, like all elements of Terminal 3, has been done on a grand scale, encompassing 32 hectares with a maximum width of eight hundred metres. That roof will shelter more ground space, at ninety-nine hectares, than four of London’s Heathrow Airport terminals combined, and at night will the red, yellow, and orange lights of the terminal–traditional Chinese colours–will be visible through the triangular windows in the Terminal’s ceiling..

The gargantuan dimensions of Beijing Airport’s Terminal 3 construction initially required the relocation of some ten thousand Ganshang villagers and others who lived in the area surrounding the airport. A work force totaling more than fifty thousand built the Terminal, with its nearly two million cubic metres of concrete, and half a million tonnes of steel, or ten tonnes for each of the people involved in its construction. And they did it in just over three-and-a-half years.

Terminal 3’s concourse extends nearly three kilometers. The Canadian built shuttle train connecting its three sections with their more than three hundred check in points, the Terminals four hundred and forty-five lifts, and the more than sixty kilometers of baggage carriers brought the total cost of the completed terminal to nearly $4.6 billion USD. The baggage carriers will be able to move up to twenty thousand pieces per hour at a speed of seven metres per second.

But the design of Terminal 3, for all its extremes, does not overlook the need for the Terminal to provide its guests with a welcoming experience. Those approaching the Terminal on the ground will be greeted in a Feng Shui inspired manner, as the Terminal’s magnificent glass wall entrance extends into the exterior landscape.

The Terminal’s roof lights run in a north-south direction intended to help arriving passengers become oriented, and skylights in the roof face southeast to maximize the amount of heat and sunlight entering from above.

While Beijing Airport’s Terminal 3 has been completed just in time for the Olympics and will play crucial part in the success or failure of that endeavor, it is only a stopgap measure in Beijing’s growing air traffic congestion. Plans are already underway to begin construction of an entirely new international airport in Beijing, to be completed in 2015.

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