Case Study

Introduction

Airports of Thailand commissioned a consortium that included HOK as lead designer to design the new Suvarnabhumi International Airport Midfield Satellite Concourse in Bangkok. The 216,000m², four-story concourse building will add 28 contact gates to Thailand’s main airport, which will serve more than 50 million passengers per year. The design references the existing architectural language of the main terminal. Using a similar barrel vaulted section and alternating bands of glass and solid material, the interior of the midfield blends harmoniously with the spatial quality of the main terminal. The roof at the centre of the concourse is elevated and separated from the rest of the concourse, a reference to the stacked and layered roof forms of traditional Thai structures.

 

Computational process

Initial conceptual design studies were first undertaken using McNeel’s Rhinoceros 5.0.  These studies culminated in a wireframe model which defined the structural…