Airport Master Planning/ Facility Planning & Design/ Infrastructure Planning & Design

Dutch influence at airports around the world

Flying Dutchmen

Interview taken from "Design of the Times"

Emphasising on the practical, the Dutch way of building an airport, says Rik Krabbendam, Managing Director, NACO, Netherlands Airport Consultants, is so unobtrusive that no one thinks of asking where it came from.

"We don't intentionally try to bring something Dutch to our projects. Airports have to comply with international standards. At the same time we try to express the uniqueness of the location. If it's Dutch, it is a reflection of what has allowed Schiphol become one of the prime international airports. That is functionality," Krabbendam tells GN Focus.

The company's worldwide projects include airports as varied as Botswana's Sir Seretse Khama International Airport, Egypt's Cairo International Airport and Viracopos-Campinas International Airport in Brazil, in addition to the master plan of the Abu Dhabi International Airport's Midfield Terminal Complex and the Beijing New International Airport. The company is a part of global engineering company Royal Haskoning DHV, with a singular focus on aviation, including airports.

"In Beijing, the airport has a huge, huge red coloured roof since the colour red is very important to the Chinese. The shape of the building represents a character translated as 'people'. In shape and in colour we try to connect whatever the airport wants to express," says Krabbendam.

He says one can find futuristic airports in Europe and in Asia — Changi in Singapore, Incheon in Korea and larger airports in North West Europe in Frankfurt and in Amsterdam.

In its 63 years, NACO has seen airports evolve from "transition zones between air and ground and a border crossing to zones that integrate other modes of transport such as rail, along with being an area for shopping, hotels, business parks and cargo."

The next few decades, says Krabbendam, will see all complicated processes being automated, "with automated baggage system, with all sorts of passenger information, which have made airports into an IT operation more than just a transfer point of passengers."

From simple origin to destination models, airports are now hub operations with feeder flights, while also catering to the no-frills approach of budget airlines. "There is also the integration of the airport with the metropolis. We call them airport cities or aerotropolis — you see it in Dubai where the airport and the city are inter-aligned. You are seeing it in Abu Dhabi with the city connecting with the airport," 
he says.

The commonality, he says, is in following the three-P approach to airport design: "people, profit and the planet. Yes, we are architects and engineers and planners; we design for the people who use it. We consider the environment and we make sure that there is return on investment. What is Dutch about us is we do a professional job and bring in all experience."

And of course, their projects often echo that unique Calvinistic philosophy in design.

Click here for the full article written by Shalini Seth for Gulf News