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terminal
terminal
Terminal 3
Beijing Airport
Norman Foster + Partners
2008
Jared Subler
Architect.
Terminal 3 was designed for the Beijing Capital Internation Airport Company, Ltd. The building holds the title of
having the largest footprint of any airport, of any building, in the world. It is the first building in the world to
4
exceed one million square meters in floor space. The
terminal became fully operational on March 26, 2008. 5
The journey from the check-in to the farthest gate takes
15-20 minutes. 6 The building was erected mostly with
regional materials. The construction workforce swelled
to 50,000 at its peak.7 The terminal was designed to accommodate 50 million passengers, the estimated annual
capacity for the year 2020. 8 Future expansion of the terminal was considered in the design. To the right is a view
of the ceiling translucent ceiling grid. The structure of
the grid emphasizes the longitudinal axis of the building,
serving as a circulation guide to the passengers. Also in
view are columns, which taper to a larger cross section.
Though structural, these columns also aid to a percieved
verticality of the space.
Building.
Concept.
Site Plan.
Longitudinal Sections.
The cross section diagram exhibits the columns, six total, supporting the roof. Two columns support the center
while a pair of slanted columns, one interior and one exterior, providing support on each end. The columns support a modular space truss roof structure. The underside
of the ceiling in made of aluminium louvers. The louvers
can be seasonally adjusted to maximize daylight. The
loads in the roof are horizontally and vertically directed
through reinforced concrete decks, downstand beams,
and columns into a 38 foot column grid. Critical to the
earthquake prone Beijing, this system allows the structure
to be elastic. Members were individually sized optimize
the weight of the steel components. 11
Connections.
Elevation,
Cross Section and Diagram
Column Analysis.
The tapered cross section is found throughout the structure of the building. It can be found at the entrance
ramps of the building, as well as the deck supporting the
concourse road around the outside of the entrance. The
sectional variation respects its bending stresses. Shear
stress increases at the ends due to loss of material. Also,
with little moment at the ends of the beam, an unvaried
cross section provides an unnecessary waste of material.
A Cantilever.
1. Lin-Liu, Jen, Beijing Capital International Airport, Architectural Record, July 2008, 113.
2. Jen, Beijing Capital International Airport, 119.
3. Jen, Beijing Capital International Airport, 113.
4.Futagawa, Yoshio, Ed., Beijing Capital International
Airport, GA Document, no 102 (2008): 34.
5. Beijing Capital International Airport
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/
Beijing_Capital_International_Airport
6. Jen, Beijing Capital International Airport, 119.
7. Jen, Beijing Capital International Airport, 113.
8. Futagawa, Beijing Capital International Airport, 35.
9. Futagawa, Beijing Capital International Airport, 34.
10.Futagawa, Beijing Capital International Airport, 34.
11. Detail, Airport Terminal in Beijing,http://
www.detail.de/rw_5_Archive_En_HoleArtikel_5922_Artikel.htm
12. Detail, Airport Terminal in Beijing.
Footnotes.
Bibliography.