CIMdata PLM Industry Summary Online Archive
09 May 2005
Company News
Airside Center and Railway Terminal Project in Zürich Airport Noted as Extraordinary
Itten+Brechbühl AG , a leading architectural and planning company based in Switzerland, has been nominated for a 2005 BE Award for its work on the Airside Center and railway terminal in Zürich Airport.
The BE Awards of Excellence, which are being presented tonight at the BE Conference , honor the extraordinary work of Bentley users improving the world's infrastructure. These projects set benchmarks for their industries, and showcase the imagination and technical mastery of the organizations that created them.
In 1996, the design team of Itten+Brechbühl AG, Nicholas Grimshaw & Partners Ltd., Ernst Basler+Partner Inc., and Ove Arup & Partner International Ltd. was commissioned by the former Flughafen Immobilien Gesellschaft (now known as Unique Zürich Airport Inc.,) to develop two central passenger hubs for Zurich Airport.
The Airside Center is the hub for all travelers who pass through Zurich Airport, and has been described as "the high point of a new, urban-scale, and attractive travel and spatial experience." Here, all arriving and departing passengers touch base and then proceed to Gates A or B or, via Skymetro, to Gate E, the Midfield Dock.
The building, which houses restaurants, shops and lounges, is 250 meters long, 60 meters wide, and 25 meters high. Its striking appearance includes a wing-like roof and expanse of windows on the world. The roof seems to hover above the transparent facade of glass, expressing weightlessness and movement. The long, light-bathed interior of the Airside Center opens up to the traveler as an enormous, multi-level concourse beneath a long-span, gently curved roof. The steel-truss roof framing, deliberately left exposed, is designed and detailed to reinforce the expression of lightness and dynamics.
The second hub, a terminal for Swiss rail system SBB, is an important node for airline passengers, plus a key layover station for travelers using the regional transportation system. It is at once a railway station, shopping center, multistory garage, information center, service center, and workplace for airport employees.
The central architectural element of the new rail terminal is a 900-square-meter skylight. It lets daylight deeply penetrate the structure, passing through large cut-outs on each floor. As the focus of the important shopping and transportation hub, the sculptural glass-covered atrium forms the climax of a sequence of spaces proceeding toward the light.
MicroStation supported the planning process for this major design effort, handling the complicated design conditions imposed by the complex geometry and project's large scale. Large data volumes were efficiently processed and compacted, which also facilitated data exchange. Little user training was necessary, and the increased flexibility helped manage peak workloads. In short, Microstation added efficiency, helped the team stay on schedule, and optimized costs.
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