High reaching design

Abu Dhabi International Airport – Midfield Terminal Support Facilities

Abu Dhabi, UAE

Buro Happold provided the Abu Dhabi Airport Company (ADAC), the organisation that owns and operates the majority of airports in the region, with full engineering and architectural design services.

Together with Pascall and Watson and RS&H we have covered all masterplanning, engineering, transportation, architectural and specialist consulting services for ADAC projects.

Abu Dhabi International Airport has seen unprecedented growth in recent years, with forecasts predicting passenger numbers to increase to 40 million people a year by 2030. This has resulted in a need for the airport to increase capacity, including a new Midfield Terminal Complex.

Challenge

Following our initial work on the design of the main international airport building, we were commissioned to work on a number of supporting facilities for the site. A significant challenge was to deliver secure spaces that met the needs of the different stakeholders. Key projects included the Employee Consolidation Centre – a facility that processes over 1100 staff members within a ten-minute window – the Airport’s goods and waste facility and a 1,600 space car park.

Solution

The 5,000m² Employee Consolidation Centre serves as the central security screening and customs clearance checkpoint for employees. The security procedures and facility layout required careful planning at the early stages of design. This involved consultation with interested parties to create an efficient building, allowing high staff flows to pass securely and with minimal interruption. We also provided a landside bus staging area, as well as taxi holding and car rental zones.

We designed a 1,600 space car park, providing for the long term parking needs of passengers flying from the new Midfield Terminal. The facility includes advanced management systems linking to wider airport networks, along with integrated bus services to and from departure and arrival halls.

Throughout the project, we maintained a very flexible approach, placing members of our team in the client’s offices to speed up the design and approval process. With such a fast paced development plan, communication with the other design teams and airport technical specialists was critical. We used BIM from an early stage so that projects were clearly defined and fully coordinated.

Value

Working together with our partners and the client, our experts delivered complex developments within a unique and challenging environment. In a project where safety and security were critical, we created world class airport facilities to meet the increasing needs of the client and their customers over the coming decades.