Arup has been involved in aviation development for over 50 years. In that time its teams have worked on more than 100 airports across the world.
Few firms can match Arup's 2008 record for completing six major airport projects in a year, spanning the globe from Beijing to London, New York to North Carolina, and Hyderabad to Dubai.
Sustainable airports in operation
Air travel is not just about tourism, many of us have to cross the world for work and whole regions rely on transport connections for economic and cultural development. Rajiv Gandhi International Airport, for example, will bolster the economy of the Indian state of Andhra Pradesh. While we continue to travel and to need airports, Arup is busy making aviation facilities as minimal in their environmental impact as possible.
Arup provides comprehensive design and consultancy services to enable the aviation industry to deliver on its commitment to greater sustainability in practice, from the construction of airport buildings to their performance in operation. The airside centre for Zurich Airport in Switzerland, for example, was designed to maximise solar gain from daylight, alongside efficient features for low-energy heating, cooling and ventilation, and water conservation.
Integrated design, worldwide scope
Working with architects to deliver stunning new airport buildings such as Terminal 3, Beijing Capital International Airport, China, is only part of what Arup does. The scope of its design services ranges from highly-specialised engineering for the long-span structures of terminals, to designing everything from air traffic control towers and cargo handling systems to solutions for greater passenger comfort in transit.
Across its wide range of aviation design and consultancy services, the firm demonstrates its understanding of the complex interactions between operators and airlines - as in the JetBlue terminal at JFK, New York - operational efficiency and safety, passenger well-being and security and the continually changing regulatory and policy environment worldwide. Arup's tradition of total design and its culture of knowledge sharing mean that it works seamlessly for clients across all regions and holistically across design disciplines.
From planning to journey's end
Arup's involvement in aviation projects may start with the intricacies of transaction advice or airport planning, environmental consultancy or noise impact research for the site. For others it provides individual design services such as the wayfinding system for Rome’s Fiumicino Airport in Italy and ORAT (operational readiness) for Terminal 3, Dubai International Airport.
Aviation projects are immensely complex and involve a diverse set of design teams. Arup is experienced in design team leadership, a service that has proved highly effective in ensuring on-time on-budget projects for clients such as BAA on Terminal 5, London Heathrow, UK. Similarly with Dublin International Airport, Ireland, Arup has the experience and capability to take non-partisan lead over the entire multidisciplinary design team on behalf of the client.