International Architecture Awards Tell a friend

Nanning, China | 2014

Architects: Kohn Pedersen Fox Associates
Associate Architects: Beijing Institute of Architectural Design (BIAD)
Client: Beijing Institute of Architectural Design (BIAD)
Contractor: Beijing Institute of Architectural Design 
Photographers: DeSimone

Located in the capital of the Guanxi Region of China, The Nanning Wuxu International Airport (NNG) defines the newest gateway to this rapidly expanding City of Nanning.

The city is located 21 miles from the airport and connected with a new high speed rail line that arrives right at the front door of the new airport.

The design challenge was to develop an overall master plan for the airport that would provide for developmental growth and expansion of the airport terminal system as well as to develop the arrival space for the train system with direct connections to the airport terminals. We were then to develop the 2-million-square-foot terminal building.

The design envisioned a new landscaped sustainable park focused on the storm water management for the runways for the landside arrival and a grand terminal building that takes its overall sinuous form from the undulating hills of the surrounding mountain range. At the center of the terminal, a powerful ovoid shallow dome marks the arrival/departure hall creating a great civic room for travelers coming and going from the city. Four terminal wings reach out from the hall.

The first two run laterally along the long axis of dome and define the edge of the landscaped park. These wings allow for future extensions and expansion of the airport.

The second two wings reach out to the air side and create a welcoming forecourt, giving visitors an unusual spatial experience as the planes depart or arrive from the terminal. The architecture of the building springs from the structural design of the roof canopy.

Aesthetically, the design is a fusion of the mechanical airplane wings with the more biological notion of bird wings. This fusion develops from a structural grid that is built from an organic transformation of two groups of quasi parallel lines that rack and twist to accommodate the dynamic movement from one forecourt wing to its opposing lateral wing.

When the two groups are superimposed, a natural changing diagrid structural system occurs at the dome and provides the opportunity for the vast long spans of the great hall. Within the building the canopy is lightly supported by super thin splaying columns that further enhance the dynamic effect of a structural system in motion.

On the landside one enters the building though a grand proscenium portal and is immediately drawn to the natural light that filters through the filigree diagrid ceiling from the skylights above the inclined splayed gateway columns.

To the airside, the roof closes down close to the floor and creates an exciting linear undulating panoramic window which frames the theater of planes coming and going from the airport.

At its essence, the new terminal is the answer to a multiplicity of programmatic, iconographic, and infrastructure demands, but most importantly it has become the new celebrated gateway to Nanning.