New Beijing airport to be world's biggest

The expansion of Beijing Capital International Airport Terminal 3 will increase the airport’s capacity from 27 million to 60 million passengers.

(picture from Foster and Partners website)
The Terminal 3 that is currently under construction covers an area of 1,480 hectares, and is far grander in size and scale than the existing terminals (would become arguably the largest airport terminal building complex built in a single phase with 900,000 m² in total floor area). It will feature a main passenger terminal (Terminal 3A), two satellite concourses (Terminal 3B and Terminal 3C) and five floors above ground and two underground. Upon completion, it is reported that passengers will be able to travel from the entrance of Terminal 3 to the farthest gate in less than 5 minutes.

“Hong Kong airport is currently the biggest of its kind. But that will be eclipsed by Beijing (…) It's the world's largest and most advanced airport building,” says the project's architect, Norman Foster.
With airports at Stansted and Hong Kong already under his belt, he should know better than anyone. “The airport will be the gateway to the city,” says Foster. “It's advanced not only technologically, but also in terms of passenger experience, operational efficiency and sustainability. It will be welcoming and uplifting, a symbol of place, its soaring aerodynamic roof and dragon-like form will celebrate the thrill and poetry of flight and evoke traditional Chinese colours and symbols.”

In short, the airport is not simply about shifting large numbers of people in and out of the city. Just as important will be its part in the conspicuous assertion of a new kind of China and its modernity. It is one of a dozen huge projects Beijing is building at furious speed to transform the city in time for the Olympic games of 2008.

For China, the Olympics are being used as the chance to make a defiant and unmistakable statement that the country has taken its place in the modern world.
The site works in three shifts, seven days a week. Nothing stops the cranes, the concrete mixers, the welders and the scaffolders. Not even the discovery of fossilised dinosaur bones that turned up in the mud ahead of the bulldozers one day, or a carved ancient stone, saved from the mechanical diggers and re-erected next to a cluster of huts.

The site is still working on the May Day holiday, when the rest of China shuts down for a week. The workers here stop only for the Chinese New Year, when it gets too cold for concrete to set properly. The site comes to a standstill and the armies return to their villages until the thaw comes. During the day they brave the dust storms and the summer heat. At night they work under arc lights. They sleep in ramshackle clusters of huts and green army tents in a series of shanty towns scattered around the site.