- Retail nodes for South Africa’s OR Tambo International Airport.
- 7,000m2 retail and circulation space.
This exciting project at OR Tambo International Airport arose from a need to provide a large area of high quality duty-free shopping.
The space for this was not available within the existing building, so the architect proposed extending into the triangular clearance space between parked aircraft.
This world-first idea projected an extra 7000m2 of trading and circulation space at departure level, 10m above ground, with minimum interference to airport operations.
To minimise disruption to the airport during construction, Arup proposed that the nodes and airside corridor structure be constructed off site and wheeled into place overnight. This technique was later used successfully on the Heathrow Terminal 5 project in the UK.
The 210t triangular nodes were fixed onto a temporary transport structure and towed along the taxiways by two aircraft tractors. The progress of this juggernaut was monitored as it followed a pre-determined route.
Building materials were lowered from the roof to further reduce interruption at ground level.
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