BIG and HOK tapped for new main terminal at Zurich Airport

A world design workforce led by Bjarke Ingels Group (BIG) and St. Louis-founded world observe HOK—within the roles of design lead and aviation architect, respectively—have triumphed in a two-stage design competitors searching for proposals for a brand new Dock A at Zurich Airport. Situated a number of miles north of central Zurich, the airport is the biggest worldwide airport in Switzerland and the primary hub of flag service Swiss Worldwide Airways. Per a press announcement from BIG, the overhaul of the prevailing Dock A major terminal facility—an area timber-heavy affair that features new Schengen and non-Schengen gates, retail, lounges, places of work, a brand new air site visitors management tower, and an extension of the airport’s present immigration corridor—goals to “strengthen the airport’s continued standing because the gateway of Switzerland.”

Described by Bjarke Ingels, founder and artistic director of BIG, in an announcement as “a easy but expressive design—rooted in custom and dedicated to innovation—embodying the cultural and pure components of Swiss structure,” the long run new Dock A follows a number of different main new additions to the 74-year-old Zurich airport together with Dock E, the Airside Heart, a passenger center-slash-shopping mall, and The Circle, a conference heart designed by Riken Yamamoto. The proposed design itself has been dubbed by the workforce as Raumfachwerk, a German phrase that, within the phrases of BIG, can be utilized to explain a “strong but versatile structural framework.”

“The title says all of it: House and construction get totally built-in and lead to a extremely useful and versatile design,” remarked jury chair, the Basel-based architect Harry Gugger. “The spine of the mission is fashioned by a construction that isn’t simply load bearing, however defines and adapts the area, creates a novel environment, and offers a particular identification true to its place and period.”

“This mission marks not solely a brand new milestone for Zurich Airport however for all the aviation,” added Gugger, noting the jury was “delighted and grateful to endorse such a groundbreaking mission that can assist to revive sustainable wooden building for excellent infrastructural tasks.”

Becoming a member of BIG and HOK on the profitable workforce are Buro Happold (structural engineer), 10:8 (native architect), Pirmin Jung Schweiz AG (structural engineer timber/constructing physics), NACO (aviation advisor), Haerter & Associate AG (mechanical engineer), TLP (electrical engineer), and others. The workforce’s imaginative and prescient for Dock A received out over 10 different proposals from a blockbuster roster of corporations vying for the mission, together with Foster and Companions, Grimshaw Architects, and SOM. The win marks the second main European mission secured out of carefully watched competitors by BIG in a matter of weeks, following final month’s collection of the agency’s proposal for the long run Vltava Philharmonic Corridor in Prague.

“As airports develop and evolve and as worldwide tips and security necessities change, airports are likely to change into increasingly more advanced: Frankensteins of interconnected components, patches and extensions,” mentioned Ingels. “For the brand new major terminal of Zurich Airport, now we have tried to reply this advanced problem with the best potential response: A mass timber area body that’s structural design, spatial expertise, architectural end, and organizational precept in a single.”

Along with an abundance of regionally sourced prefabricated wooden components, together with the constructing’s flooring, ceilings, and V-shaped timber columns that present “a structural perform whereas additionally serving as a reference each the enduring Swiss alpine landscapes and the centuries-old custom of timber building and conventional pitched roofs,” different notable components of the brand new Dock A embody a photo voltaic shingle-clad roof with built-in shading, sustainable cooling and heating techniques, and a hovering, pure light-flooded central atrium that serves because the connective tissue between all seven flooring of the brand new advanced, together with a subterranean immigration corridor and upper-level lounges. The brand new air site visitors management tower will likely be positioned on the heart of the brand new construction, “skilled from the within as a beacon that creates a way of place, akin to a city sq. fairly than an airport,” in response to the agency.

Per Zurich Airport, building on the brand new Dock A at Zurich Airport—estimated price ticket: roughly $705 million—is slated to begin in 2030. The present Dock A, positioned simply to the north of the deliberate new facility accommodates roughly one third of arriving and departing passengers, and can stay open as normal whereas work is underway. It is going to be dismantled as soon as the brand new facility is opened.