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C H A P T E R
Kansai Airport, Osaka, Japan
a different form of structural and spatial articulation at each zone, employed to suggest hierarchies of use.
If one examines the plan and section of the airport the correspondence between form, function and meaning becomes evident. The design splits into four related parts, each subscribing to the same geometric and structural logic. The first, and most dominant, is the terminal itself; the second is the long airside boarding wing; the third is the railway station;
and the fourth is the multi-storey car parks. The composition has a strict order – rationalism tempered by processional clarity, especially in the routes from car parks and station to terminal and thence to the boarding wing. The axis of movement, interrupted at various points by roads, concourses and a massive public canyon at the landside of the terminal, merely defines stages in the passengers’ journey. For a building of such dimensions and level of use (25 million passengers a year) there is a remarkable sense of direction. This derives in part from the orderly nature of the plan and the way in which different spaces have been fashioned in distinctive ways. For example, the public canyon is solid and earthy – its colours and monumentality refer to traditional loadbearing architecture – while the departures lounge and airside wing are lightweight and expressive of high technology with distinct aeronautical overtones.
Part of Kansai’s clarity derives from the handling of the cross-section of the airport. The terminal has an undulating roof, whose wave-like profile rises and falls to reflect the importance of the accommodation inside. This symbolism is needed because the terminal departs from the orthodox pattern of separating international from domestic movements into separate terminals. Instead, a single building handles all flights, with the organizational complexity handled not by separate buildings but by using four different floor levels in the
terminal, and by lateral zoning of the long airside boarding and arrivals wing. To help resolve the confusion that the use of a single multifunctional terminal entails, the design places particular emphasis on a large lofty public concourse known at Kansai as the ‘canyon’. With the proportions of a four-storey city street, the ochre-coloured canyon is a magnificent thoroughfare nearly 250m long. All passengers have to cross the canyon, and most do so at high level via first-floor bridges, which serve mainly those arriving on domestic flights, and at third-floor level for those departing. At ground-floor level the canyon is crossed by international arrivals who experience this spectacular space immediately after customs clearance.
It is a worthy gateway to a nation.
The canyon is a public street within the airport, but it is not a shopping mall. It serves mainly as a means to give passengers a sense of place within a building type noted for placelessness. The canyon organizes people and airport functions; it provides information; and it is a location for
‘meeters and greeters’ to join up. Shopping and business suites are provided on decks partly overlooking the canyon and partly in the body of the terminal beneath the undulating roof.
At the airside, the terminal has another grand lofty space known as the ‘departures lounge’. Whereas the canyon is urban, vertical and rectangular in quality, the departure lounge is wide and rounded, and has detailing that evokes that of the aircraft outside on the apron. Also, while the canyon is mainly rooflit, the lounge is lit by curved windows, which look out across the runways and downwards to the aircraft being prepared for take-off. The different characters of the canyon and lounge – the former quasi-public, the latter private and reserved for travellers – are reflected in the nature of the spaces and in their detailed treatment.
15.1 The section of Kansai Airport terminal is clearly influenced by the aeroplanes themselves. Kansai Airport, Osaka, Japan.
Architects: Renzo Piano Building Workshop.
The canyon and departures lounge make up the two principal experiences at Kansai. Everything else is secondary – even the delightful and muscular top floor of the terminal.
Here the curved triangular latticed beams, the fabric sails and the sets of four angled columns make the international departures hall a fine space, but one that is essentially subservient to the canyon and departures lounge. Hierarchy is expressed spatially and to a greater extent structurally where engineering scale gives importance to key spaces. Daylight too plays by the same rules: the two large lateral volumes are
lit with bold or dramatically shaped windows. Elsewhere daylight filters through the floor levels or enters via largely glazed gables, which serve mainly to define the limits of the building, not functional hierarchies.
Kansai represents a fusion of architecture and engineering at a most profound level. Peter Rice, who acted as the structural engineer, has ensured that spatial sequences and functional patterns are articulated and expressed, rather than understated. The structure and detailing of the terminal may be excessively muscular for some tastes, but Kansai is symbolic Major international airport terminals
15.2 The architectonic character of the departure lounge at Kansai establishes a new standard of architectural expression for terminals. Kansai Airport, Osaka, Japan. Architects: Renzo Piano Building Workshop.
of Japanese culture, where high technology and heavy engineering prevail. The development of Kansai Airport, both the construction of the large man-made island in Osaka Bay to house it and the innovative passenger terminal with its multi- modal transport connections, represents an undertaking of international significance.
The sophistication of the terminal extends to the lesser parts (some not designed by the Renzo Piano Building Workshop but by local practices). The car parks, station, control tower and access roads subscribe to the same values.
Bold engineering and daring architecture complement each other, with varying treatments according to the significance of the building or the designers involved. The terminal itself is by a single design practice, and the indelible stamp of the Renzo Piano Building Workshop can be seen from the main building to the 1.7km wing of the departure lounge, and from the broad architectural concept to details such as furniture design. The same logic imposes itself upon the architectural language, whether it is in the canopy that protects passengers at the terminal’s main entrance, or in the strutted supports of the lounge seats. The rigour derives from five main design principles:
• the expression of advanced building technologies, especially in the design of glazing, wall and roof cladding
• the use of muscular structural systems to animate interior volumes and provide orientation
• the use of curved profiles that respond naturally to wind pressures and aid ventilation
• the manipulation of building sections, rather than plan, to articulate routes and provide interior architectural drama
• the synchronization of building and aeronautical systems.
Taken together, these principles give Kansai its distinctive qualities, and in the emphasis upon high technologies – related at a conceptual level to ecological processes – hint at the airport architecture of the twenty-first century.
Constructional details
The curves of the terminal reflect in direct fashion the elliptical and elongated profiles of the planes. Both the main terminal
building and the boarding wing share an affinity in colour, curvature and construction with the aircraft. One could imagine the boarding wing in particular being a section through an enormous aircraft of the future: the flattened curvature of the airside profile, the panels of silver grey aluminium and stainless steel, the lightweight structural framework with exposed ribs and diagonal bracing – all look like some futurist airship.
Glazing and smooth steel cladding follow the same wavy lines, and share similar constructional characteristics. The section through the building remains the same – a kind of extruded shell with square cut-off ends. This adds to the economy of the terminal and, to a lesser extent, to its future flexibility. Both terminal proper and the boarding wing can be extended laterally, though major growth would have to be met by constructing another island terminal nearby.
The external smoothness of Kansai is not merely architectural fashion: it is a direct response to the typhoons that strike this part of Asia. There are no lips, eaves, skylights or parapets to catch the wind or set up eddies to disrupt the physics of the building. The disciplined geometry of the shell is complemented by vigorous detailing. Because wind and rain loading varies across the roof, the 90 000 cladding panels 1.8m by 0.6m that form it are all designed to the same high standard.
There are no ‘specials’ to add unnecessary complexity to construction or future maintenance.
The same rigour applies to the logic of responding to earthquakes. A secondary structure is employed outside the main structure of the terminal, which absorbs the differential movement of earthquakes. The lateral forces set up by seismic activity are soaked up by the continuous secondary structure, which spans between the trusses.1Kansai is designed also to absorb vertical movement, which may result from the settlement of the material used to make the island, and lateral movement, which occurs in earthquakes. Rather than design a single connected structure, Ove Arup and Partners chose a double loosely tied structure where pin-joints rather than rigid connection predominate. This allows2for beam movements of 0.5m and landside glazing movement of 150m.
Ecology is the inspiration for the strategy behind the air-conditioning, the landscaping of the 4.37 by 1.25km man-made island, and the incorporation of planting into the terminal. The basic shape of the building derives from nature’s Kansai Airport, Osaka, Japan
own profiling of shapes into undulating sand-dunes at the ocean edge. The Building Workshop sought in its initial investigation of the design that of ‘technology emulating, and in harmony, with nature’.3 This is most evident in the relationship of the roof profile to the ‘natural curve of a jet of air blown into the departures hall from the land side’.4 By adjusting the building profile to the natural flow of air currents, there is no need to provide suspended ducts, which disfigure rectangular, flat-roofed terminals. The approach to air-conditioning (and to smoke venting) alludes to conditions outdoors rather than indoors, just as the masterplan seeks to create an island forest rather than merely rows of trees, and in the terminal itself a sense of a winter garden. There are limits to working with nature, though the design pushes at these frontiers to the benefit of later terminal designs such as Heathrow’s Terminal 5 by Richard Rogers. At Kansai the ecologically inspired macro-system of natural ventilation is tempered locally by micro-systems that heat or cool specific locations by more conventional means.
Although Kansai was a team effort, involving principally the Renzo Piano Building Workshop, Ove Arup and Partners and the local practice of Nikken Sekkei, the airport is a considerable achievement and displays remarkable consistency. It is one of the greatest engineering feats of the modern age, yet in the principles adopted it points towards a new contract between man and nature. At a fundamental level, the airport at Kansai begins to respond, protect and add to local ecosystems: it seeks a harmonious relationship with the ocean, climate and vegetation of this part of Asia. That the airport, arguably the least sustainable of all modern urban structures, should try to emulate natural systems is perhaps Kansai’s main claim to be a precursor for the design of terminals into the next century.
Denver Airport
The design of Denver Airport, Colorado, by the architectural practice of Curtis W. Fentress, breaks the mould of the sterile anonymous airport found elsewhere in the USA. The design consists of three blocks of airport accommodation beneath a lofty central volume which is roofed in fabric creating a series of tented shapes which symbolically recall the distant Rockies.
Seen from afar, the white tented roofs echo the snow-capped
peaks of the Rocky Mountains, and the supporting masts symbolize the trees which cover the lower slopes. Since Denver is a hub airport used by about 40 million passengers a year, many of whom do not depart but merely transfer to other flights, the brief given to the architects was to create a
‘memorable symbol of the city’.5
The terminal building consists of a large central space three storeys high with arrivals on the ground floor, shops, etc. on a mezzanine, and departures on the upper level. The double height central spine of the terminal has the quality of a botanical garden with its extensive planting and pale diaphanous light that spills down from the fabric ceiling. Sunlight enters via triangular roof-lights in the gables and along the eaves, creating a pleasant mix of types of light which add sparkle to the interior and aid navigation. Passengers progress not across the terminal but along its main axis. This unusual arrangement allows cars to reach the building on either side of the rectangular plan, adding to the convenience (common in the USA) of car drop-off adjacent to the doors of the terminal.
Beyond the roads which run parallel to the terminal are several blocks of car parks arranged axially. Thus, the main terminal at Denver is formally disposed, providing a central point with Major international airport terminals
15.3 Concept sketch by architect Curtis W. Fentress for Denver Airport with its references to the nearby Rocky Mountains.
a well-structured geometric plan of roads, car parks and runways.
The fabric roof of the terminal acts as a powerful central element within the composition. The various people movements, shops, check-in and security controls exist beneath the attractive undulations of the roof. The activities beneath are ordered by rows of elongated columns which help direct the flow of people towards the departure gates.
Denver is an airport terminal where space, light and structure are not subsumed by the bustle of movement and retail activity. As a hub airport, Denver operates practically 24 hours a day. Another benefit of the unusual fabric roof is the way it glows at night, establishing a welcoming beacon in the darkness.
Kuala Lumpur Airport, Malaysia
The new airport at Kuala Lumpur, the hub for Air Malaysia, is positioned about 30 miles from the centre of the capital.
Although hub airports play an expanding role in international aviation, they are usually an anonymous collection of terminal buildings positioned nowhere in particular. Since hub airports are the ultimate in placelessness, their architects have recently begun to address how to put identity into these anodyne fragments of global air infrastructure.
Designed by Kisho Kurokawa, the airport at Kuala Lumpur uses ‘indigenous materials, forms and landscaping in an attempt to introduce diversity and complexity into a moribund typology’.6The creation of local distinctiveness draws upon the cultural context of Malaysia in an interesting marriage of high technology and regional references. Thus, the new airport acts as an attractive gateway to South-East Asia, drawing upon cultural references without abandoning the principles of modern design.
The airport is designed to be efficient, flexible and memorable. Efficiency is expressed in the rational framework of new airport buildings, both terminals and satellites, linked by a rapid transit system not unlike that at Stansted. The buildings are planned on a super-grid of infrastructure that unifies into a logical whole the terminal buildings, runways, aprons and satellites. Outward growth of the buildings has been anticipated as has internal adaptation made possible by
keeping the primary structure independent of partitions. The latter provides the advantage also of maintaining the visibility of the primary structure, thereby aiding way-finding through the terminal. The internal orchestration of cone-shaped columns, banana-shaped sky-lights and inverted roofs evokes the Malaysian tradition of timber construction used in a tectonic fashion.
The main terminal building consists of two principal levels for international travellers – arrivals at first floor and departures above with two intermediate levels accommodating domestic arrivals and departures. The four-storey structure is linked to Kuala Lumpur Airport, Malaysia
15.4 Plan of Kuala Lumpur Airport with central terminal and two cruciform-shaped satellite terminals. Architect: Kisho Kurakawa.
the road system at first floor level and to the high-speed rail network via a station on the mezzanine level. Thus, it is rather more of an interchange than many modern terminals, especially as, unlike Heathrow, Detroit and Gatwick, the airport has high-speed rather than suburban rail connections. The integration of modes of movement and consequential traffic flows is well handled. The plan is ordered to give a sense of orientation with views of the aircraft from much of the terminal.
The shuttle train is also highly visible to those using the departure lounge – its movements adding to the theatricality of the airport.
The complex roof of the main terminal building with its hyperbolic paraboloid quadrants of concrete held apart by lines of glazing provides an unusually memorable experience for those travellers with the time to look up. The undulating ceiling supported by squat columns with lighting and ventilation integrated into the column capital orders the activities below.
The partitions, guidance panels, enclosed lift shafts and the automatic doors to the rapid transit system are effortlessly absorbed into the space. Softness and acoustic control are provided, not by the floor, which has a hard reflective marble finish, but by panels of timber used to clad the soffit of the roofs. The use of a local Malaysian wood as a ceiling finish adds to the regional references that abound in this airport.
Major international airport terminals
15.5 Sketch of interior of satellite terminal at Kuala Lumpur Airport. Architect: Kisho Kurakawa.
15.6 Sketch of exterior of main terminal at Kuala Lumpur Airport.
Architect: Kisho Kurakawa.