Terminal 5's Spanish big brother opens

The new international terminal at Madrid's Barajas airport has been opened.

The new international terminal at Madrid's Barajas airport was opened on February 4 2006.

The £1 billion project was planned and designed by a consortium including Richard Rogers Partnership and TPS, the design and project management division of Carillion Business Services, as well as Spanish firms Estudio Lamela and Initec.

Started in 1998, the project covers some six square kilometres, and dwarfs Heathrow's terminal 5 in every respect.

Whereas T5 is 450,000m2 in total, the new Barajas terminal includes a 470,000m2 main building, a 286,000m2 satellite terminal and a 350,000m2 car park capable of holding 9,000 vehicles.

The new terminal will eventually double the capacity of the airport taking it over 70 million passengers annually, potentially making it the fifth-largest airport in Europe and well-positioned to compete for traffic with the other major 'hubs' in Europe, such as Paris, Frankfurt and London.

The development of the new terminal began back in 1996 with an international design competition sponsored by the Spanish airport company, AENA.

TPS, then known as TBV (Tarmac, Black and Vetch: a joint venture in construction professional services between UK-based Tarmac and US-based Black and Vetch), was approached by Estudio Lamela, a leading Spanish Architectural practice to enter the competition.

The two companies then partnered with Initec (a Spanish engineering consultancy), and with UK signature architect, Richard Rogers Partnership (RRP), to submit the successful bid.

The initial requirement was to establish a design brief and TPS undertook the lead for this working closely with Initec in Spain.

Major challenges for the whole team were to continue the modular design concept, which was a major thrust of the competition entry, whilst providing the necessary flexibility of use to handle the different traffic peaks.

From the passenger viewpoint the aim was to provide an easy to use terminal, taking account of the large passenger numbers through providing them with a logical direction of movement created through the building design.

The client required an efficient easily operated building with significant opportunities for commercial development.

TPS's activities included:.

* Leading the airport facility planning with Initec.

* Leading the design for structural engineering elements of the project.

* Leading the building services design.

* Leading the civil engineering of the roads and transportation design elements, assisted by Initec.

* Preparing the concept design for the baggage handling system.

The architectural concept and design was undertaken by RRP, with Spanish architect, Estudio Lamela.

The initial teamwork was undertaken in a collocated manner based at the Richard Rogers' studio in Hammersmith, all team members contributing to design development.

The resulting building provides a unique elegant interpretation of the sometimes-competing requirements.

The distinctive roof design follows the form of a bird's wing and the structure uses post-tensioned beams, the first time a major project has used this kind of construction in Spain.

The inner surface of the roof is clad in bamboo, which had to be specially grown in China, and rigorously tested to ensure compliance with the various regulations.

The terminal consists of four parallel linear blocks, each with three levels.

The upper two levels are for departures and the lower for arrivals.

The first block has the drop-off and pick-up zones, the second the departure area including check-in and arrivals reclaim and arrivals concourse areas, the third the retail and processing areas, and the fourth, some 1.2km long, contains the gates with related ramp accommodation and the outer baggage areas.

Between the blocks are novel 'canyons', where the roofline dives down to the lower levels, enabling daylight to penetrate into the building, with these canyons being crossed by dramatic steel bridges.

The satellite building, positioned some 2000 metres from the main terminal, will be accessed via a people mover system.

The system has been designed to be flexible to handle the initial international long haul peak and then be capable of accommodating the forecast 'Schengen' (European commuter) peak spill from the main terminal.

To achieve this, international arrivals are processed on the second level, international departures on the first level and Schengen on the ground floor, with full segregation and control authority processing maintained at all times.

Stuart Walsh, Director of Aviation at TPS, said: "It is rewarding to see the culmination of such a large and prestigious project with which I have been involved from the outset.

We pulled together the consortium that was successful in the international design competition, and then worked closely with the client to produce the detailed design brief".

He recalled that: "The overall project design team was well over 100 people, across various design practices, and in two countries.

The project management of that process alone was enormously complex.

"Once the final design had been completed, and appropriate consents secured, the roles of TPS and Richard Rogers Partnership switched to that of project management, with the Spanish partners taking the lead through the tendering and construction phases." The actual process of planning the new terminal was far less controversial compared with T5.

Whereas T5 required a prolonged public inquiry, Barajas was given the go-ahead by the Spanish Government - the airport was seen as being of national importance, obviously over-riding any local concerns or considerations.

That said, the new terminal appears to have the almost unanimous support of the local community: over 70 per cent of the local population are employed by the existing airport, with the nearby town expected to grow from 4,000 to 25,000 inhabitants within four years.

Barajas Airport is a demonstration of a new terminal from concept to completion in little over seven years.

"It is also a demonstration of multi-national, bi-lingual, bi-located, multi-disciplined project team working together to successfully deliver a goal," concluded Stuart Walsh, "and that was some achievement".

Both TPS and Richard Rogers Partnership are also lead consultants on the development of the Heathrow Terminal 5.

TPS has a wealth of experience working on major aviation projects around the world: it has an ongoing role as one of BAA's framework consultants - the company is working on Stansted's new masterplan - whilst continuing and completing project work at Lisbon, Mauritius, Isle of Man, Durban, Dublin, and Lithuania.

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