The World’s Biggest Airport Terminal

WORDS Lindi Brownell Meiring PHOTOS Grimshaw Architects via archdaily.com

By 2018, Grimshaw Architects, Haptic Architects and Nordic Office of Architecture, along with GMW Mimarlik and Tekeli Sisa would have created the largest airport terminal in the world.

Once completed, Istanbul’s new terminal will span approximately one million square metres, boast six runways and serve up to 150 million passengers every year.

To put these numbers into perspective, we decided to do a little comparison with London’s Heathrow airport and our very own O.R. Tambo in Joburg. Heathrow has two runways and in 2013 (its busiest year) it served 72.3 million passengers. O.R. Tambo also has two runways (including one of the world’s longest) and can handle up to 28 million passengers a year.

If you feel like you’re a bit lost when you get to an airport (all of which can seem overwhelmingly large), imagine what this terminal is going to feel like?

The pictures say it all.