China: Brit To Design World's Biggest Airport

he prize-winning Iraqi-born architect designed London's Aquatics Centre

Dame Zaha Hadid is picked to design a new airport that will have capacity for at

least 100 million passengers per year.

By Mark Stone, China Correspondent in Beijing

The world's largest airport is to be built in China, designed by a British architect.A design by Dame Zaha Hadid has been unveiled for Beijing's Daxing Airport, which will be built over just three years in the Daxing district to the south of the Chinese capital.

Dame Zaha won the Pritzker Architecture Prize in 2004 and the Stirling Prize in two consecutive years, 2010 and 2011

Her work has become familiar in the Chinese capital, after she designed the iconic Galaxy Soho building in the city's Chaoyang District.

The airport will open in 2017 and will be the city's second international hub. The current airport, Beijing Capital International Airport, is also designed by a British architect, Sir Norman Foster, and is currently the world's second busiest by passenger numbers, handling 83 million people in 2013.

The new airport will operate in addition to the current airport and will have capacity for at least 100 million passengers per year. It will have a staggering seven runways and is expected to ease congestion elsewhere.

In a statement, Zaha Hadid Associates said: "Initially accommodating 45 million passengers per year, the new terminal will be adaptable and sustainable, operating in many different configurations dependent on varying aircraft and passenger traffic throughout each day.

"With an integrated multi-modal transport centre featuring direct links to local and national rail services… the new Daxing airport will be a key hub within Beijing's growing transport network and a catalyst for the region's economic development, including the city of Tianjin and Hebei Province."

Dame Zaha, who was born in Iraq, was behind the Aquatics Centre for the London Olympics in 2012. Her trademark extravagance is on display in the new design for the vast new airport which incorporates a star-like shape with smooth curves.

It will be built with the help of engineers from France's ADPI Group, a world leader in airport design.

Beijing's current airport has three terminals. The area occupied by Terminal Three alone is larger than the whole of London's Heathrow Airport combined.

The expansion of the aviation market in China is extraordinary. The growing Chinese middle class is continuing to boost passenger numbers with more and more people able to afford air fares.

Low-cost airline options are still limited within China, but plans to expand this particular market will boost passenger numbers further.

Boeing and Airbus both expect the Chinese market to be their most important growth area over the coming decade as government regulatory reforms take hold and consumer behaviour changes.

China is determined to break the monopoly held by Airbus and Boeing with its own home-grown aviation industry.

A Chinese firm is trying to secure international certification for the C919 – a "Made-in-China" passenger plane.

Airbus already assembles its own passenger planes in China.

Boeing recently estimated that China will need 6,020 new planes over the next 20 years with its domestic route market expected to grow by 65%.

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