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terminal

terminal
terminal
Terminal 3
Beijing Airport
Norman Foster + Partners
2008
Jared Subler

Terminal 3 is a fourteen million square feet, $3.65 billion


dollar complex of three volumes resting upon a two
mile long north-south axis. 1 Foster + Partners, with Arup
as the engineering arm, designed and built the project,
on schedule, in less than four years. Mouzhan Majidi,
Fosters chief executive, comments on the Chinese construction industry, the speed at which they do projects
is ten times faster. 2 Though the architecture of airport
terminals is not new to Foster + Partners, the firm began
designing them in the 1980s, they lacked an office in Beijing. Upon receiving the job Foster set up shop in Beijing
in 10 days. 3 The local collaborating architect was the
Beijing Institute of Architectural Design.

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.

The deadline for completion coincided with the 2008


Beijing Olympics. The terminal, designed to be functional and efficient, acts a symbol of China for new arrivals
to digest. The roof swells, exposing triangular skylights,
the form of a mythological dragon stretched upon the
earth. The buildings central axis mirrors the planning of
ancient Chinese cities. The departures and arrivals are
on separate levels. Arrivals claim the upper level. Travelers first step foot on the south end of the building and
are greeted by a 150 ft. canopy, tapering to 50 ft. at the
sides. A traditional imperial Chinese color scheme accents the columns supporting the canopy. The center
columns are coated red, the outlying are orange, then
yellow. Foremost, the buildings design aims to resolve
the complexities of modern air travel. 9 The long axial
plan maximizes the perimeter, while maintaining a highly compact and sustainable footprint. 10 The terminal
consists of the public space above offices and service
spaces. The passenger is connected to the sky through
skylights. The building is composed of three naturally lit
volumes: in order, T3A (processing and domestic gates),
T3C (domestic gates), and T3B (international gates). An
underground train connects the three volumes.

Concept.

Site Plan.

From left to right:


T3A, T3C, T3B

Plan level 6. Plan level 5.

Plan level 3. Plan level 1.

North Elevation. East Elevation.

Longitudinal Sections.

Departure Hall Section. Main Hall Section.

Spine Section. Finger Section.

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

Spine Section Diagram.

The prefabricated space trusses were connected with


bolted connections, while ones carrying greater loads
were welded. Though hemispheric bowl connections
were planned, spherical connections were employed in
the space truss. 12

Connections.

Elevation,
Cross Section and Diagram

These columns, located on the perimeter glass curtain


wall, are composed of metal tubes. In plan the three
tubes form a hollow triangle. This allows the material
of the column to be located as far from the centroid as
possible, thus increasing its moment of inertia. In elevation the columns form an ideal column design. As the
vertically symmetric column rises the cross section grows;
at the vertical center the columns section recedes. This
design achieves the highest moment of inertia at the
vertical center. Also, the form of these columns reflects
the sloping curve of the roof of the building. A similarly shaped column can be found on the exterior of the
building around the international gates.

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.

Tapered Cross Section.

A 150 long cantilever is formed at the entrance of the


building. The cantilever consists of the roof. The trusss
web begins to increase in size roughly 3 structural bays
before the cantilever. The web reaches its max depth
near the origin of the cantilever. In response to the cantilever the beams cross-section depth must increase. A
higher moment dictates the structure of the beam to be
more massive. The section also depicts the previously
mentioned tubular, swollen column, as well as the tapered section deck supporting the road.

Delfection and Moment diagrams

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.

Detail, Airport Terminal in Beijing,


http://www.detail.de/rw_5_Archive_En_HoleArtikel_
5922_Artikel.htm
Futagawa, Yoshio, Ed., Beijing Capital International
Airport, GA Document, no 102 (2008): 34-47.
Lin-Liu, Jen, Beijing Capital International Airport, Architectural Record, July 2008, 112-119.
Wikipedia, Beijing Capital International Airport
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beijing_Capital_International_Airport

Bibliography.

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