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New Chitose Airport is the gateway to Hokkaido, the scenic north of Japan. As the island’s popularity grows among overseas visitors, with Asians being the majority, a new international terminal building is built to cater that big demand, but also strives to enhance the travellers’ experience.
Arup acted as the facade and environmental consultants for the project, collaborating with other Japanese architects and designers.
Move around with ease
Accessibility is at the heart of the terminal design – meaning to minimise users’ hassles to move around unnecessarily. The domestic and international terminals are now connected by sky bridges. Traffic flow is also optimised by allocating all of the arrival facilities like immigrations and customs to the second floor, and locating the departure facilities to the third floor.
Expansive departure hall
The departure hall is designed to be a huge space, where suspension truss structures are used to support the roof with a large span of 46m. High-efficiency reflective panels are also installed onto the trusses to enhance brightness inside the hall – hence a sustainable lighting scheme that reduces the use of ceiling lights and maintenance costs. Skylights are also installed at places.
Signature geometric façade
The main façades of the building are curtain walls made up of parallelogram units that fit together diagonally, supported by structural columns criss-crossing in the same way. While daylight can penetrate into the hall through these façades, motorised blinds are creatively installed at the edges of each unit that can roll out automatically in contrary motion, creating an entertaining sight when in operation.
This terminal building shows how Arup and our collaborators integrate various techniques into a design so as to orchestrate a brilliant experience for the users.
