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The long haul

Published: 12-Mar-2009

After almost two decades of working on Heathrow Terminal 5, Chief Architect Mike Davies remains enthusiastic about creating ‘an intuitive passenger experience’.

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For someone who didn’t get to bed until 3am, Mike Davies is extraordinarily bright and perky, both in appearance and temperament. The architect and senior director at Rogers Stirk Harbour + Partners is, as ever, dressed from head to toe in jolly red hues. (Even his silver hair is tied back with a red band). Despite working into the early hours to finish off another key project, he seems more than happy to show a pack of design journalists around Heathrow’s Terminal 5.

Having worked at RSHP for 35 years, Davies has led some seriously high-profile projects, the Pompidou Centre in Paris and Lloyds of London among them, but taking 19 years to complete, Terminal 5 would test the patience and the enthusiasm of a saint, never mind the most dedicated of architects. ‘I’m endlessly enthusiastic because until you’ve actually delivered the job it’s not over,’ says Davies resolutely. ‘And if it takes 19 years, it takes 19 years. It’s not BAA’s fault.’

Of course it wasn’t supposed to take so long. A very ‘public’ public enquiry into the scheme, which began in 1995 and ended in 1999, cost BAA precious time and money. ‘You cannot allow strategic decision-making to string out that long in the future,’ Davies asserts. But during that ‘time out’ period,’ as he calls it, the team was able to rethink the building, resulting in a sensational, but sensitive scheme that will finally be unveiled to the public at the end of this month.

RSHP (then known as the Richard Rogers Partnership) won the competition to design the terminal for BAA back in 1989. The project, built to accommodate up to 30 million British Airways passengers annually has cost a staggering £4.3bn. Davies and his team went through four design concepts before they were satisfied with scheme.

Approaching the long-awaited terminal from the car park, crossing over one of four bridges that lead to the main concourse (vehicles have to be at least 30m away for security reasons) you cannot immediately appreciate its scale but once inside it hits you like a thunderbolt. With its soaring glazed roof and facade supported by a gargantuan white steel structure it’s somewhat akin, to entering the skeleton of a giant whale. Even on what is a disappointingly grey, drizzly day it’s a phenomenally light and cavernous space. ‘What you get from the building is light, air and view,’ says Davies proudly. These are, he readily admits, ‘old-fashioned, architectural values,’ but the point is that they are not easy to apply to airport design.

‘There were a number of challenges but the biggest architectural challenge was that it was a such a complex brief,’ says Davies. ‘There are 43 different stakeholders and that means you’ve got 43 different sets of demands which are essentially conflicting with each other. You then have – somehow – to knit those together into some overall logical architectural message which is simple, has clarity, and gives you a good passenger experience.’ What you get at Terminal 5 is an ‘intuitive passenger experience’.

From the point of arrival, you feel that you are making a logical progression through the terminal and on to the plane. You can see where you are going at all times, which is a revelation. Helping to create a stress-free journey, there is a streamlined check-in system with banks of check-in desks, beautifully designed by BAA’s team led by Stevan Brown with Priestman Goode acting as ‘concept guardians.’ Each of the neat black desks has a white saddle, which marks the point of transaction between BA agent and customer and serves to lessen the confusion and sense of panic that many passengers feel when checking in at a major airport.

From there it should be a smooth journey, guided by the mesmeric curve of the roof, punctuated by mighty white trusses, through to airside where the planes will be clearly visible. From the other side of the building, you can make out Windsor Castle, even on the dullest day.

It’s BAA’s intention that half of its passengers will arrive at the airport by Underground or mainline rail. The platforms are situated underground at an awe-inspiring new transport interchange masterminded by HOK and it is estimated that it will take just two minutes for passengers to get from platform to check in. The whole journey – from the disembarking public transport through to passengers’ arrival airside of the building – should take just 20 minutes, according to Davies. At no time should customers feel hemmed in or stressed out. ‘It’s a big, generous space that will look after you,’ he says.

Despite restrictions on height imposed by the flight code, the concept still manages to stretch to five storeys. ‘It’s quite a skyscraper but it doesn’t look it,‘ says Davies of his compressed masterpiece. It’s 40m from ground to roof, 170m wide and 390m long. Three Empire States buildings could be squeezed in, on their sides, apparently, which is a far more entertaining comparison than the traditional football pitch analogy. It easily accommodates the essential innards of the terminal (everything from the commercial facilities through to the all-important passenger lounges and office space for BA staff) in what Davies describes as a ‘city’ of free-standing steel-framed structures.

A good quantity of space is, of course, given up to retail as that’s where most of BAA’s revenue comes from. In the full knowledge that ‘retail gone wild’ can wreck a building, this aspect of the project has been executed under the guidance of retail design consultant Chapman Taylor.

At the time of FX’s visit, much of the fitting-out of the retail offers was still in progress, with a Harrods and Gordon Ramsay Plane Food restaurant to be among the highlights of the scheme. Apart from brightly coloured lift structures, and bridges, there is little colour in the building itself, allowing the retail outlets to add life and vibrancy to the interior. The elements that stand out, however, are the gigantic ‘white trees’ that hold up the vast structure. ‘The facade leans against them making the building feel very light,’ Davies explains.

The floor is predominantly a marble conglomerate with certain areas highlighted in American black walnut. More surprising, perhaps, is the specification of Norman Foster’s Airline seating system by Vitra, which Davies generously says he’s ‘very happy’ to see. And he means it too.

Altogether, it’s a thoroughly thoughtful scheme; outstanding without being in the least bit showy. ‘I think we have been as creative as we could have been considering the enormous constraints,‘ says Davies. ‘It may be not as flamboyant as some other airports but is an extraordinarily high performance precision machine rather than a heart on your sleeve building.’ The only ‘designery’ flourishes to be found in the building come in the form of white discs (outsized anaemic Pringles to the untrained eye) that create a stylish and immensely practical suspended ceiling. They are hinged at one side and flip down for easy access to the gubbins above, and are at their most striking in the baggage reclaim areas which were a picture of divine (but false) serenity with no baggage or people in them.

Davies seems pleased with the finished project, but is anxious that all parties involved in this massive scheme are awarded due credit. This included project architect Pascall and Watson as well as YRM Architects which worked alongside RSHP integrating the airline operational interface, passenger flow and British Airways’ requirements into the base build. As British Airways’ sole architect, YRM was also responsible for the six major lounges and the BA office space.

As far as Davies is concerned, his work won’t officially be done until the first lot of passengers sails into the building on March 27, but for now he allows himself the satisfaction that it is at the very least a triumph of flexibility. ‘The ability of the building to change according to future requirements is probably greater than any other building of this scale at the moment,’ he explains. Having born witness to some major overhauls in the air travel industry since his time on the project, from the implementation of fast-track services to major security crises, Davies is all too aware of how quickly things can and do change. In response he has delivered the most effective, high-functioning envelope in which the ‘city’ of free-standing, steel-framed structures can quickly be reconfigured to meet new challenges as and when they arise. And of course its flexibility makes it sustainable too – well, as sustainable as an airport terminal can be at this present time. ‘On the whole it has been a rich and interesting human process rather than a technical slog,’ Davies concludes.

This article was first published in FX Magazine www.fxmagazine.co.uk