Daxing International Airport , Beijing

About

In Daxing District, 46 kilometers south of Tiananmen Square, is the world's largest terminal in a single building, designed by Zaha Hadid, who died in 2016. Daxing International Airport was built to decongest the Chinese capital's airport at Chaoyang, and has opened less than five years since construction began.The project was carried out thanks to a total investment of some 52.5 billion euros, and includes a high-speed railway station a range of cutting-edge technologies, from robots to keep travelers informed about flights, connections, and weather conditions to face recognition systems at all checkpoints. The compact and efficient 700,000-square-meter terminal was thought out to serve 45 million people a year for a start, but with the idea of this growing to 100 million passengers and 4 million tons of cargo annually. Because of the starfish shape of the floor plan, one can get to the farthest boarding gate in less than 8 minutes. A network of linear skylights helps travelers find their way. The building incorporates systems for producing photovoltaic energy, recovering residual heat, and collecting rainwater.

Sources

• Arquitectura Viva