An international airport is a hub of activity; with holidaymakers, business people and others travelling en mass, it is essential to create a calm and tranquil atmosphere. It is also important to plan and design the airport so that a large number of people can pass through with minimum disturbance to each other and to the operations within the terminal itself.



There are, however, smaller general terminals and military bases that form a large part of the aviation industry and the design and development of each of these has different priorities.

The smooth running of these large projects takes a level of organisation and planning that requires the amalgamation of many skills in the engineering industry. In recent years the building of any industrial development has had to conform to new environmental impact legislations.

To guarantee that the development meets these regulatory standards it is essential to implement an Environmental Management System. This will ensure that every step of the airport design has been considered in accordance with any future environmental impacts it might have.

Environmental engineering takes many environmental factors into consideration and meets the 'green' standards expected by a concerned public and demanded by government regulations. Using resources wisely and setting high standards that will meet tomorrow's sustainability requirements are a priority.

It is now widely understood in business that an increase in environmental performance translates as a rise in general performance and profits; it is this kind of understanding that is allowing the boundaries of design to be pushed and for developments in airport design to embrace the future of technology.

The aesthetics of an airport differ depending on whether it functions as a consumer-facing international air terminal, a military base or a general aviation airport, due to significantly different end user requirements. In a commercial airport, the design is tailored toward creating a calm, open atmosphere.

The users of this type of airport are generally waiting for long amounts of time to board a flight and will spend this interval shopping in the many tax free boutiques and eating and drinking in the terminals bars and restaurants. The way these airports function has to facilitate a large number of people queuing and moving between areas. This requires wide, open walkways and an environmental control system that ensures passengers are comfortable while they wait to board.

If you compare this with the functioning of a military air base, the differences in design priorities are startling. At military air bases, comfort and aesthetics take a lower priority than functionality because a military establishment is primarily a place of work. There is no need to create a consumer-friendly atmosphere culture and the volume of personnel that military airports have to process is dramatically reduced.

A small local airport often has to accommodate a unique demographic that needs more functionality than an international terminal because some of the clientele are pilots and others are passengers, so a certain level of consumer-friendly aesthetics are built in and the facilities on offer mirror those that would be expected at a major airport, such as restaurants and shops.

Understanding and unifying aesthetics and functionality in accordance with a sustainable way of development is the major challenge facing airport designers today. When you have passengers who seek five star service and airport operators that aim to meet a target of zero carbon emissions, formulating a green project that gets the green light can seem like pie in the sky.