Taking inspiration from Norman Foster’s passion for piloting, the models in the ‘Flight Archive Gallery’ explore flight as an activity that goes beyond mere transport. While creating large-scale infrastructural impacts, the works in this gallery attend to the human dimension of experiencing flight. The works curated in this collection are an illustration of this premises. |
Flight
Archive Selection
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· Stansted Airport, Stansted, Essex, United Kingdom, 1991 · Beijing Airport, Beijing, 2008 · Hong Kong International Airport, Chek Lap Kok, Hong Kong, Chine, 1998
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Stansted Airport was Foster’s first airport project. It forever revolutionised the airport typology by creating an unobstructed, light-filled terminal that maintains a consistent relationship between passenger, plane, and landscape. From its beginnings it was paramount to create a clear space with a strong relation to its functions. This was achieved by removing bulky service systems from the roof and, as seen in the sectional model, placing them below the terminal. Stansted’s structural trees allowed this reconfiguration while permitting the development of structural and roof elements as a light-filtering devices, in an sculptural solution.
Following and further developing the idea of a clear space, connecting all agents of an airport by focusing on the ease of navigation, Beijing International Airport was appointed on 2003 and finalised in 2008 as a gateway for the twenty-ninth Olympic games. Ideas such as relegating the services undercroft and crowning the space by lightweight roof canopy, with natural top-light, previously seen in projects like Stansted, were matured in Beijing International Airport at an exceptional scale.
Building upon successive innovations in airport design and the early vision of the Climotroffice, the process drawings for the New International Airport of Mexico City’s suggest a mission to distil the many distinct structural elements associated with airports into a single, highly functional building skin. The 3D printed study model and the luminous, unobstructed terminal rendering represent the result: a continuous glass envelope capable whose triangulated structure allows it to achieve spans three times the length of conventional airports.
The Droneport developed by the Norman Foster Foundation builds upon these projects in order to connect areas on the African continent without adequate land infrastructure. As suggested from left to right in the displayed prototype, a metal formwork allows for the construction of a vaulted module that can be built by residents using earthen bricks made locally. The project, which maintains a cooperative relationship with the Rwandan government, proposes that flexible configurations of these vaults can not only serve as a hub for drones carrying medical supplies but also as multi-use community centres.
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Coconcept Concept Design Sketch. Axonometric view, Stansted Airport
