New terminal of {tag:pracownie} project at India's Bengaluru airport
What if tourists could feel the city's heritage from the moment they stepped off the plane? That was the question the architects at Skidmore, Owens & Merrill asked themselves. The office with a rich history, whose modernist output inspired by the work of Mies van der Rohe can be seen in Chicago and New York, undertook the development of an airport serving a remarkably thriving city.
The newly constructed Terminal 2 of Bengaluru's Kempegowda Airport has an area of 255,000 square meters. It increases the airport's annual capacity by 25 million passengers, making it the third busiest in the country. The expansion responds to the growing needs of the city, which is one of India's largest IT centers.
SOM sets precedent in airport design
Photo by Ekansh Goel © Skidmore, Owens & Merrill
hanging gardens to match international airport
Drawing on Bengaluru's reputation as a "garden city," SOM's designers, along with landscape architects Grant Associates and Abu Jani and Sandeep Khosla (AJSK), wanted to create a "terminal in a garden," focusing primarily on the passenger experience. All stages of the journey pass through intricately designed spaces. The main block of the terminal, where the check-in counters are located, is separated from the gates by a ninety-foot-long, multi-level strip of native vegetation, meandering paths and bamboo structures stretching across multiple floors. This creates a calming experience for passengers and eases the hustle and bustle of the airport. Skylights and hanging plants play with the light streaming in. The finishes reflect the textures of the local landscape through the materials used, such as bamboo, ivory-colored granite and rattan.
The terminal spaces are richly finished
Photo by Ekansh Goel © Skidmore, Owens & Merrill
The terminal houses 13 gates for wide-body aircraft, which convert as needed to 28 serving narrow-body aircraft. The adaptability of the gates optimizes their wear and tear. Terminal 2 at Kempegowda International Airport in Bengaluru is already the second designed by SOM in India - Chhatrapati Shivaji International Airport in Mumbai was completed in 2014.
The natural materials used in the finishes exemplify the green current in architecture
Photo by Ekansh Goel © Skidmore, Owens & Merrill
Will green architecture keep up with the Indian boom?
The terminal's form was designed with the philosophy of sustainable architecture in mind, as well as flexible adaptation to Bengaluru's dynamic growth. It can be powered entirely by renewable energy, which has earned it initial certification as LEED Platinum - the most widely used rating system for sustainable construction. The SOM project is an example of implementing nature-based solutions that dramatically reduce the carbon footprint of construction. The office is developing a formula for bio concrete - a carbon-absorbing, algae-based alternative to traditional concrete. As studio representative Yasemin Kologlu tells The New York Times:
We simply can't rely on natural materials because we don't have enough wood and bamboo to meet all our construction needs. How we build needs to change, but we don't have a golden mean for that. To achieve its goals, sustainable architecture must use the resultant of more than 30 different strategies.
