Newtown Creek, Brooklyn and Queens, New York. image © Perkins+Will

Global architecture and design firm Perkins+Will has been selected to devise the masterplan for a major mixed-use urban development beside one of the largest airports in the world—the Istanbul New Airport, which is currently under construction. Known as an “airport city,” the 1700-acre (690-hectare) development will include a central innovation district, hotels, retail and commercial office space, logistic centers, an expo and convention center, public space, and metro and high-speed rail connections to Istanbul and beyond. 

CITE, New Mexico. image © Perkins+Will

David Green, EMEA Urban Design Lead at Perkins+Will, said: “The opportunity to lay the groundwork for a development of this magnitude is both a tremendous honour and responsibility. Istanbul’s new airport will serve millions of passengers, but its airport city will be key to capturing that vitality. Beyond simply supporting aviation, our plan will create a framework for a truly unique centre of economic, cultural, and social life.” 

Gardiner Expressway, Environmental Assessment and Urban Design Study, Toronto, Ontario, Canada. image © Perkins+Will

An airport city is a development model that organizes buildings, infrastructure, and transportation networks around an airport core, with the airport serving as primary economic driver for the surrounding area. The airport city beside Istanbul’s New Airport, which will be one of largest sites of its kind in the world, will also serve as the seed for future development along the Black Sea, Green added. 

Poplar Point Development , Forest City, Washington, D.C. image © Perkins+Will 

Drawing from its worldwide urban planning experience, Perkins+Will’s masterplan will incorporate sustainability strategies to enhance building performance, comfort and livability at the district scale—all contributing to the resilience and economic viability of the development. It will draw on Turkish history, culture, and tradition to create an inviting sense of place in the public realm. And for travellers, it will enhance connectivity to Istanbul’s central business district and across the region. 

Cem Cakaralir, Deputy General Manager of IGA Havalimani Isletmesi AS, overseeing the Airport City development, said: “This is an unprecedented opportunity to launch the Istanbul New Airport as a global crossroads into Europe, the Middle East, and Asia. It is an important investment for the future of Turkey.” Perkins+Will will deliver the masterplan to IGA in a record-setting four months’ time, setting the entire development on a fast-track toward ground-breaking in 2016.

The terminal complex for the Istanbul New Airport. image © MIR 

Nordic-Office of Architecture, Grimshaw and Haptic Architects had been appointed by the Turkish consortium of Cengiz, MAPA, Limak, Kolin and Kalyon to design the terminal complex for the Istanbul New Airport in April, 2014. Based on the Black Sea coast, some 35km out­side Is­tan­bul, the am­bi­tious six-run­way de­vel­op­ment, mas­ter planned by Arup, will be de­liv­ered in four phases. The first phase will open in 2018 and aims to serve 90 mil­lion pas­sen­gers per year. This will in­crease to over 150 mil­lion pas­sen­gers once fully com­plete. Ter­mi­nal 1 of the Is­tan­bul New Air­port will be the world’s largest air­port ter­mi­nal un­der one roof, with a gross floor area close to one mil­lion square me­tres.

The Is­tan­bul New Air­port will be mod­ern and highly func­tional, with a unique sense of place.image © MIR

The ar­chi­tec­tural de­sign of the ter­mi­nal is closely linked to the area’s unique char­ac­ter and will act as a stun­ning gate­way to Is­tan­bul and Turkey. In spite of its size, the ter­mi­nal build­ing is con­ceived as one that sits calmly in its con­text, with a clear hor­i­zon­tal ex­pres­sion. With a gen­er­ous plaza and an ef­fi­cient traf­fic fore­court on the land­side, rail, metro, bus, coach and park­ing seam­lessly in­te­grates with the ter­mi­nal and the pro­posed Air­port Park Cen­tral.

In­ter­nally, the vaulted ceil­ing geom­e­try gives a strong sense of di­rec­tion­al­ity, from land­side to air­side, but also re­sponds to peo­ple tra­vers­ing the ter­mi­nal along its length. image © Nordic-Office of Architecture

The roof and lay­out de­sign will re­in­force pas­sen­ger flows, while en­hanc­ing pas­sen­ger ex­pe­ri­ence with in­tu­itive wayfind­ing. Sky­lights pro­vide nat­ural day­light, which is dif­fused through the ceil­ing via fo­cused beams of di­rect sun­light. This day­light high­lights key ar­eas in the ter­mi­nal such as check-in, se­cu­rity, pass­port con­trol and the re­tail en­vi­ron­ment.

drawing layout of the terminal. image © Nordic-Office of Architecture

The ever-chang­ing hues and tones of Is­tan­bul in­spire the in­te­ri­ors, where a slat­ted roof is lay­ered to re­veal a play of light, a sub­tle range of blue colours and a dis­creet geo­met­ric pat­tern. The build -up of the roof is un­der­pinned by a strong struc­tural logic, whilst evok­ing the city’s rich ar­chi­tec­tural her­itage. The con­struc­tion of Ter­mi­nal 1 is due to start in 2015 with a pro­jected com­ple­tion date 29 October 2017. The Nordic Grimshaw team will fin­ish the scheme de­sign of Ter­mi­nal 1 in the first quar­ter of 2015. The de­tail de­sign will be ten­dered out by the EPC con­trac­tor for the air­port pro­ject CM­LKK.

image © Nordic-Office of Architecture

> via Perkins+Will